filament
n.a very thin wire or thread. You usually see this inside an old light bulb or as part of a flower.
n.a slender, threadlike object or fibre, such as the wire in an incandescent lamp or the stalk of a stamen.
“The light bulb stopped working because the filament broke.”
“The 3D printer feeds a plastic filament through a heated nozzle to create the object layer by layer.”
“In the early twentieth century, engineers experimented with various materials before discovering that a tungsten filament could withstand the high temperatures required for prolonged illumination.”
Commonly used in technical contexts like electronics, 3D printing, and biology.
“Rather, it breaks apart the membrane that covers jaw-muscle fibers, causing contractions strong enough to damage or destroy the muscle filaments that slide past each other when the muscles contract.”
“Thick lanes of dust stand out as dark filaments because they are dense enough to resist being worn away, creating dramatic contrast against the glowing red clouds.”
Borrowed from Medieval Latin fīlāmentum, from Late Latin fīlō (“to spin, draw out in a long line”), from Latin fīlum (“thread”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.