STERNUM • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Sternum

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noun

Sternum n. (pl. L. sterna, E. sternums)

(Anat.) A plate of cartilage, or a series of bony or cartilaginous plates or segments, in the median line of the pectoral skeleton of most vertebrates above fishes; the breastbone. Note: The sternum is connected with the ribs or the pectorial girdle, or with both. In man it is a flat bone, broad anteriorly, narrowed behind, and connected with the clavicles and the cartilages of the seven anterior pairs of ribs. In most birds it has a high median keel for the attachment of the muscles of the wings.

(Zool.) The ventral part of any one of the somites of an arthropod.

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Etymology of 'Sternum'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sternum" Quotes from Famous Books

... x., 1807) dealt with the homology between the bones of the pectoral fin and girdle in fish and the bones of the arm and shoulder-girdle in higher Vertebrates, with the homologies of the bones of the sternum, and with the determination of the pieces of the skull, particularly in the crocodile. All Geoffroy's morphological doctrine is found in them, but for the full expression of his views we must take his chief work, the Philosophie anatomique, particularly the first volume (1818). ...

— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... terror to his upper jaw, as tight as do the bellies of the fresh and slimy soles, paired together by some fishwoman; but if his tongue was paralysed, his heart was not—it throbbed against his ribs with a violence which threatened their dislocation from the sternum, and with a sound which reverberated through the dark, damp subterrene——." I think that will ...

— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... one of his pachyderms, an incisor tooth to a rodent, and a claw bone to a carnivore. The tooth of a Hesperornis would have given him no possible hint of the rest of the skeleton, nor its swimming feet the slightest clue to the ostrich-like sternum or skull. And yet the earnest belief in his own methods led Cuvier to some of his most ...

— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... and head, because there are only five divisions in which a lesion can exist. Carefully look, think, feel and know that the head of the humerus is true in the glenoid cavity, clavicle true at both ends of its articulation, with sternum and acromion processes. See that the biceps are in their grooves, and ribs on spine are true at manubrium and spine, and that neck is true on first dorsal. True in all joints of the neck, as the nerves of the arm ...

— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... agent who can go instantaneously from one place to another, it unnerves me." He sighed. "I can't get used to seeing you disappear like an overdried soap bubble, Malone. It does something to me, here." He placed a hand directly over his sternum and ...

— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

Words linked to "Sternum" : os, manubrium, gladiolus, axial skeleton, chest, xiphoid process, corpus sternum, breastbone, thorax