-cle +

Any of several minute mites, often parasitic in hair follicles.

1. A tissue that can undergo repeated contraction and relaxation, so that it is able to produce movement of body parts, maintain tension, or pump fluids within the body.

There are three types: voluntary striped muscle, involuntary smooth muscle, and branched or heart muscle.

2. An organ composed of bundles or sheets of muscle tissue, bound together with connective tissue and with tendons by which the contracting part is attached to the bones that it moves.
3. Power and influence, especially in the political, financial, or military spheres.
4. Physical strength; that is, "put some muscle into it".
5. Slang: men who are employed to intimidate, harm, or menace people.
6. To move using strength and force or effort, or to make someone or something move in this way.
7. Etymology: via French, from Latin musculus, literally "small mouse" from mus, "mouse"; from the supposed resemblance of some muscles to mice.

Any small bone; such as, the tiny bones within the human ear.

1. A very small piece of something; such as, airborne particles.
2. A very small amount of something: "There wasn't a particle of truth in anything the politician said."
3. A minute body that is considered to have finite mass but negligible size.
4. Any one of the basic units of matter; such as, a molecule, an atom, or an electron.
5. A unit of matter smaller than the atom or its main components.
6. Etymology: from Latin particula "small part".

1. A small stalk or stalklike structure; especially, one supporting or connecting an organ or other body part.
2. A slender footlike or stemlike part, as that which exists at the base of a tumor.
3. Part of a skin or tissue graft that is left temporarily attached to the original site.

A small appendage.

1. A five-pointed star, often held to have magical or mystical significance, formed by five straight lines connecting the vertices of a pentagon and enclosing another pentagon in the completed figure.
2. Etymology: from medieval Latin pentaculum, literally "little five" from Greek penta-, "five".

1. The highest or topmost point or level of something: "She was at the pinnacle of her career."
2. A natural peak, especially a distinctively pointed one on a mountain or in a mountain range.
3. In architecture, a pointed ornament on top of a buttress or parapet of a building.
4. Etymology: via French from Late Latin pinnaculum, literally "little feather".

The layer of the exoskeleton of certain crustaceans and arthropods beneath the epicuticle, which contains chitin as the principal constituent; it is composed of an endocuticle and an exocuticle.

A small branch (of a zoophyte).

1. A container that holds, contains, or receives a liquid or solid.
2. The end of a flower stalk, bearing the parts of a flower, or the florets of a composite flower.
3. In a plant that reproduces through spores, e.g. an alga or liverwort, the part that bears the reproductive organs.
4. Etymology: directly or via French from Latin receptaculum, "a small place in which to store something received".

1. A grid of fine lines in the focus of an optical instrument, used for determining the scale or position of what is being looked at.
2. Etymology: from Latin reticulum, "little net".

1. A dry fruit consisting of a broad flat pod divided by a membrane into two seed chambers.
2. Etymology: from modern Latin, "little pod" from Latin siliqua, "seed pod".

1. A long flexible organ around the mouth or on the head of some animals; especially, invertebrates such as squid, used in holding, grasping, feeling, or moving.
2. A sticky glandular hairy projection from the leaf of an insect-eating plant; such as, the sundew, whose secretions trap and digest prey.
3. Something that gradually insinuates its influence or control: "The neighborhood was caught in the tentacles of narcotics."

1. The male gonad or sperm-producing gland (testis) usually with its surrounding membranes, particularly in humans or other higher vertebrates.
2. The male gonad; either one or the other of the paired egg-shaped glands normally situated in the scrotum.

The word testicle is an alteration of the earlier testicule (about 1392); borrowed from Latin testiculus, diminutive of testis, "testicle". The Old English was herþan, probably originally "leather bag".

Testicles is also said to come from Latin testiculi meaning "little witnesses". All such test words; including protest, protestant, testify, and attest have this etymological testicle connection.

There was a time when the feminist Ms. magazine published a letter that started: “I protest the use of the word ‘testimony’ when referring to a woman’s statements, because its root is ‘testes’which has nothing to do with being a female. Why not use ‘ovarimony’?”