Definition of "dendrite"

Little copses of television antennas. Whiplike, graceful thrilling metal dendrites drawing images from the air, bringing brotherhood, communion to immured apartment people.

1970, Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1971, Chapter 1, pp. 12–13 (online edition)

A typical brain neuron has perhaps a thousand little wires, called dendrites, which connect it with its fellows.

1979, Carl Sagan, “Can We Know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt”, in John Carey, editor, Eyewitness to Science, Harvard University Press, published 1997, page 437