Noah Webster
Epiphysis
EPIPH'YSIS
EPIPH'YSY , noun [Gr. to grow.] Accretion; the growing of one bone to another by simple contiguity, without a proper articulation.
The spongy extremity of a bone; any portion of a bone growing on another, but separated from it by a cartilage.
Epiphyses are appendixes of the long bones, for the purpose of articulation, formed from a distinct center of ossification, and in the young subject connected with the larger bones by an intervening cartilage, which in the adult is obliterated.