Skin appendages are skin-associated structures that serve a particular function including sensation, contractility, lubrication and heat loss. In humans, some of the more common skin appendages are hairs (sensation, heat loss, filter for breathing, protection), arrector pilli (smooth muscles that pull hairs straight), sebaceous glands (secrete sebum onto hair follicle, which oils the hair), sweat glands (can be sweat secreted with strong odour (apocrine) or with a faint odour (eccrine)) and nails (protection).
Skin appendages are derived from the skin, and are usually adjacent to it.
Famous quotes containing the words skin and/or appendage:
“You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.
And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
“... instead of being a help meet to man, in the highest, noblest sense of the term, as a companion, a co-worker, an equal; she has been a mere appendage of his being, an instrument of his convenience and pleasure, the pretty toy with which he wiled [sic] away his leisure moments, or the pet animal whom he humored into playfulness and submission.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)