Crys"tal*line (kr?s"tal-l?n or -l?n; 277),
a. [L. crystallinus, from Gr.
????: cf. F. cristallin. See Crystal.]
1. Consisting, or made, of
crystal.
Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.
Shak.
2. Formed by crystallization; like
crystal in texture.
Their crystalline structure.
Whewell.
3. Imperfectly crystallized; as, granite
is only crystalline, while quartz crystal is perfectly
crystallized.
4. Fig.: Resembling crystal; pure;
transparent; pellucid. "The crystalline sky."
Milton.
Crystalline heavens, or
Crystalline spheres, in the Ptolemaic
system of astronomy, two transparent spheres imagined to exist
between the region of the fixed stars and the primum
mobile (or outer circle of the heavens, which by its motion
was supposed to carry round all those within it), in order to
explain certain movements of the heavenly bodies. --
Crystalline lens (Anat.), the
capsular lenslike body in the eye, serving to focus the rays of
light. It consists of rodlike cells derived from the external
embryonic epithelium.
Crys"tal*line, n.
1. A crystalline substance.
2. See Aniline. [Obs.]