cell

1. (now historical) A small monastery or nunnery dependent on a larger religious establishment.historical

2. (biology, now chiefly botany) Any of various chambers in a tissue or organism having specific functions.Examples: "Each of the two cells or lobes of the anther is marked with a lateral line or furrow, running from top to bottom[…]."

3. (entomology) The discal cell of the wing of a lepidopteran insect.

4. (obsolete) Specifically, any of the supposed compartments of the brain, formerly thought to be the source of specific mental capacities, knowledge, or memories.Examples: "How soft the music of those village bells / […] With easy force it opens all the cells / Where mem'ry slept."; "[W]e shall feel still more contempt for the order of men, who cultivated their faculties, only to enable them to consolidate their power, by leading the ignorant astray; making the learning they concentrated in their cells, a more polished instrument of oppression."; "From cell to cell of his brain crept the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all man's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre."obsolete

5. (obsolete, chiefly literary) Any small dwelling; a remote nook, a den.Examples: "Thou seest but the order and policie of this little Cell [translating caveau] wherein thou art placed[…]."; "Not long shall honour'd Douglas dwell, / Like hunted stag, in mountain-cell[…]."literaryobsolete

6. (biology) The basic unit of a living organism, consisting of a quantity of protoplasm surrounded by a cell membrane, which is able to synthesize proteins and replicate itself.Examples: "An American company has applied to experiment in Britain on Parkinson's disease sufferers by injecting their brains with cells from pigs."; "In multicellular organisms, groups of cells form tissues and tissues come together to form organs."