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Limulus Amebocyte Lysate.
Say it out loud a few times. Don’t try to think about what it might mean, just say it. Softly. To yourself.
It has a really nice sound to it and glides nicely on your tongue, doesn’t it? Kind of poetic.
When I say the first word, Limulus, I get an image of clouds, as in Cumulus or Cumulo-nimbus clouds, which kinda float in the sky.
The Amebocyte Lysate part finishes it off and the image I get from those two words is of water gently flowing.
This is sort of what Limulus Amebocyte Lysate is. It’s a concentrated fluid that is made from Limulus (the genus name of Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs) Amebocytes (Horseshoe Crab blood cells).
The Amebocyte cells are broken apart and what comes out of the cells is the Lysate. To lyse a cell is to destroy it by breaking it apart. The cell is killed and its contents (the lysate) are released to the environment.
origin: from lysis < from Latin lysis, from Ancient Greek λύσις (“'loosening'”). 
