How to Use capillary in a Sentence

capillary

1 of 2 adjective

• The wound looked like a gill on a fish, a slim keyhole weeping bright capillary blood.
  — Daniyal Mueenuddin, New Yorker, 23 Nov. 2025
• The capillary mat, which helps draw up water to the seedlings from the base tray, can be hand washed and used again, too.
  — Renee Freemon Mulvihill, Better Homes & Gardens, 1 Mar. 2023
• The soil will soak up water through the drainage holes in the pot bottom via capillary action.
  — Leanne Potts, Better Homes & Gardens, 21 Dec. 2025
• This sets up a capillary force that draws liquid (water, in this case) back up into the film.
  — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 10 Nov. 2020
• The hummingbird tongue is a fluid trap, not a capillary tube.
  — Veronique Greenwood, Discover Magazine, 4 May 2011
• The thinking is that the protein may lead to capillary leaks, which can cause fluid to enter the lungs.
  — Shari Rudavsky, The Indianapolis Star, 26 Aug. 2020
• This works through capillary action, or wicking, which puts the soil in contact with the water.
  — Jennifer Carmichael, Better Homes & Gardens, 23 Feb. 2023
• Jotheri says the salt can invade foundations by capillary action alone.
  — WIRED, 29 Sep. 2022
• The finger stick or a heel stick, known as a capillary test, is the immediate go-to option for doctors.
  — Jennifer Larino, NOLA.com, 27 July 2017
• By capillary action, water can also collect into lenses and chunks in the soil.
  — Madeline Ostrander, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 May 2020
• Given the open capillary channels, the device surface can be easily cleaned and reused.
  — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 15 July 2020
• Water, the primary enemy, must be kept off the ends of the logs to prevent rot through capillary action.
  — Karen Pilarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 17 Apr. 2018
• From there, the tide flows east in the grooves between cobblestones, carried first by capillary action, then forced from behind by the surge.
  — Justin Beal, Curbed, 11 Sep. 2021
• The strips are curled into cylinders and welded at the seam, then stretched and cut into fine capillary tubes, which machines glue to plastic hubs.
  — New York Times, 5 Mar. 2021
• When a leg pierces the surface, capillary forces cause the fan to spread open within milliseconds, creating a broad paddle.
  — John Drake, Forbes.com, 16 Sep. 2025
• Micro-structures between their scary scales act like little straws, using the force of capillary action to pull in water from moist sand.
  — National Geographic, 7 Apr. 2018
• Rather than surrounding the electrodes, water is drawn up to the electrodes using capillary action.
  — Ed Ballard, WSJ, 11 Nov. 2022
• Weintraub thinks that lower capillary counts could help indicate the early signs of dementia.
  — Katherine Ellen Foley, Quartz, 11 July 2019
• The insert uses capillary action to draw water up to the roots of the plant, encouraging them to grow down into the bottle.
  — Rachel Klein, Popular Mechanics, 17 Jan. 2023
• The person’s sample is mixed with a small amount of liquid, which is applied to one end of the strip and then flows, via good old capillary action, toward the other end.
  — Tien Nguyen, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 Aug. 2020
• Spaghetti aglio e olio, showing capillary adhesion between the noodles.
  — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 16 Mar. 2022
• In this technique, seawater is fed through an emitter—a narrow orifice or capillary—while an extractor creates a large electric field.
  — Kate Murphy, IEEE Spectrum, 7 Sep. 2021
• The majesty of the mystical body of Christ has been radically diminished, replaced by a sort of capillary effect of shame.
  — Lance Morrow, WSJ, 24 Oct. 2018
• The capillary vessels transport oil to abundant tiny circular pores that are surrounded by denticles.
  — Seriously Science, Discover Magazine, 10 Aug. 2016
• In these rare-yet-potentially-deadly cases, the capillary bed is destroyed causing hemoglobin to float freely in the blood.
  — Anna Nordseth, Discover Magazine, 27 July 2023
• These pores physically trap molten stearic acid, while capillary forces and hydrogen bonding prevent it from flowing out during melting.
  — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 31 Dec. 2025
• This vast, baffling capillary system did not appear on any map; the bayous and ponds probed by the airboat might have been dry land as recently as last summer, and farmland two decades ago.
  — Nathaniel Rich, Harpers Magazine, 20 Aug. 2025
• Capillary electrophoresis has been used since the 1980s, but the new test made some important changes that optimize the process to search for alien life.
  — Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 27 Jan. 2017
• As in the surface network, blocking blood flow in the capillary system had little effect on the larger network — blood simply rerouted itself.
  — Quanta Magazine, 14 Aug. 2013
• Images taken by a scanning electron microscope show the capillary emitters used in the electrospray system.
  — Kate Murphy, IEEE Spectrum, 7 Sep. 2021

capillary

2 of 2 noun

• Her pen strokes are blue and smooth and thin like the capillaries of maps.
  — Teen Vogue, 29 Aug. 2017
• Tea builds up your capillaries and strengthens your blood vessels.
  — Andrew Watman, Forbes.com, 8 July 2026
• The capillaries on your skin get very adept at closing off so the cold doesn't get allowed into your core.
  — Elias Leight, Billboard, 4 May 2018
• The air sacs are wrapped in tiny capillaries, which carry blood cells that are waiting for oxygen.
  — Caroline Chen, ProPublica, 15 Apr. 2020
• Blood pressure is the force of blood flow in arteries, veins and capillaries.
  — Minali Nigam, CNN, 18 July 2019
• Mosquitoes use their proboscis, or part of their mouth, to cut the skin and get to the capillaries or veins to fill up with blood.
  — USA TODAY, 7 June 2023
• This means by the time blood flows out of the capillaries and into the veins there is very little pressure behind it.
  — Bryant Stamford, The Courier-Journal, 11 May 2023
• This occurs by blood capillaries growing through old bone, which is dissolved and replaced by new bone.
  — Roger S. Seymour, Discover Magazine, 5 Oct. 2023
• The device takes blood from capillaries rather than veins, takes two to three minutes and is said to be almost painless.
  — Lucette Lagnado, WSJ, 7 Mar. 2018
• By focusing the laser on a single blood cell flowing through the capillary, the researchers could trap it and stop the flow of blood.
  — Breanna Draxler, Discover Magazine, 23 Apr. 2013
• Those capillaries allow in more of the light when full of blood, and less between beats, and the device measures how much light is absorbed.
  — Carolyn Wells, Longreads, 3 Mar. 2020
• These crystals — monosodium urate crystals — had lodged in the tiny capillaries of my toe joint, inflaming it.
  — Paul Theroux, Town & Country, 17 June 2013
• Then other cells cause your capillaries to leak blood plasma; its function is to envelop and slow down the invaders.
  — Houston Chronicle, 13 May 2018
• The blood in these capillaries is normally highly oxygenated, and thus quite red.
  — Scott Lafee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Apr. 2026
• The arteries end at the capillaries.
  — Bryant Stamford, Louisville Courier Journal, 2 Oct. 2025
• Because capillaries are so tiny, the pressure behind blood flowing through them is reduced greatly.
  — Bryant Stamford, The Courier-Journal, 11 May 2023
• As your heart rate increases, so does your blood flow, which causes the capillaries and arteries in your muscles to expand.
  — Fara Rosenzweig, Outside, 24 Jan. 2026
• In terms of the insides, the hydraulics, what happened was that the arteries and capillaries began to decay.
  — National Geographic, 15 Jan. 2017
• Meanwhile, candiru catfish sneak under the gills of larger fish and slurp all the blood in their feathery breathing capillaries.
  — Sofia Quaglia, Discover Magazine, 31 May 2023
• People with cognitive impairment had fewer capillaries in their retina than those who did not.
  — Katherine Ellen Foley, Quartz, 11 July 2019
• An intense, visible, broad-spectrum light that heats and destroys brown spots, melasma, broken capillaries, and sun spots.
  — Megan Gustashaw, Glamour, 31 Aug. 2019
• Van Leeuwenhoek took a live eel and a couple of microscopes and spent two hours with the czar gazing at blood rushing through the capillaries of the eel’s tail.
  — Robert Krulwich, National Geographic, 2 Aug. 2016
• But the red ink film floats up, thanks to a phenomenon called capillary-induced peeling, in which the water penetrates between the less-sticky ink and the rock.
  — Tess Joosse, Science | AAAS, 24 Mar. 2021
• Davis compared the water system to blood vessels — huge arteries close to the heart, and tiny capillaries in the extremities.
  — Bob Shaw, Twin Cities, 23 Feb. 2017
• There’s also some pink dye to add life-like color, and the embalmer might gently massage the hands and feet to help coerce the fluid into capillaries in the fingers and toes.
  — Victor Llorente, Popular Mechanics, 24 Apr. 2020
• Sitting on an artery instead of a capillary, the infrared sensors capture the most accurate biometric data.
  — Hunter Fenollol, Popular Mechanics, 7 Oct. 2021
• Normally, oxygen crosses the alveoli into the capillaries, tiny blood vessels that lie beside the air sacs; the oxygen is then carried to the rest of the body.
  — Meredith Wadman, Science | AAAS, 17 Apr. 2020
• The density of the smallest vessels — capillaries — became comparable to that of young mice.
  — Sharon Begley, STAT, 22 Mar. 2018
• The nanoparticles can be selectively induced (and sensed) by electrodes positioned at the entrance of each capillary.
  — Tom Coughlin, Forbes, 20 May 2022
• That shape allows the cells maximal flexibility in order to move through the narrowest capillaries in the body.
  — Lisa Sanders, M.d., New York Times, 16 May 2023