Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The group of eight bones forming the joint between the forearm and the hand.
- noun A joint in quadrupeds corresponding to the wrist.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In entomology: The club of the stigmal vein in the fore wing of an insect of the family Chalcididæ.
- noun In ichth, same as
actinost . - noun The wrist, wrist-joint, or carpal articulation; the proximal segment of the manus or hand, corresponding to the tarsus of the foot; the joint by which the hand or distal division of the fore limb is connected with the forearm. Thus, in a horse, the so-called “knee” is the carpus.
- noun Especially the carpal bones or carpalia, collectively considered; a number of small irregularly nodular bones intervening between the bones of the antebrachium and those of the metacarpus, and constituting the proximal division of the skeleton of the manus or hand.
- noun In Crustacea, the fifth joint of the normally 7-jointed leg, between the meros and the propodos.
- noun In entomology, a name sometimes applied to the pterostigma or colored spot on the anterior edge of the wings in many insects.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Anat.) The wrist; the bones or cartilages between the forearm, or antibrachium, and the hand or forefoot; in man, consisting of eight short bones disposed in two rows.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun anatomy The group of
bones that make up thewrist .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a joint between the distal end of the radius and the proximal row of carpal bones
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region which we term the wrist, and which is technically called the 'carpus' -- two rows of closely fitted polygonal bones, four in each row, which are tolerably equal in size.
On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals Thomas Henry Huxley 1860
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The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region which we term the wrist, and which is technically called the 'carpus' -- two rows of closely fitted polygonal bones, four in each row, which are tolerably equal in size.
Lectures and Essays Thomas Henry Huxley 1860
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-- The structures which are usually considered as true flexors of the carpus are a group of three muscles, which have separate heads of origin and different points of tendinous insertion.
Lameness of the Horse Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 John Victor Lacroix
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It is often very difficult or impossible to get the wire to go through the "carpus;" it will suffice, therefore, if, after coming along the metacarpus, it just misses the carpus and enters the skin again at the junction of the radius and ulna.
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The carpus of the Orang, like that of most lower apes, contains nine bones, while in the Gorilla, as in Man and the
Essays 2007
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The four bones of the second row of the carpus bear the four long bones which support the palm of the hand.
Essays 2007
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Thus the great toe is the longest digit but one; and its metatarsal is far less moveably articulated with the tarsus, than the metacarpal of the thumb with the carpus.
Essays 2007
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There is a long bone, termed ‘metatarsal’, answering to the metacarpal, for each digit; and the ‘tarsus’, which corresponds with the carpus, presents four short polygonal bones in
Essays 2007
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Thus there is a fundamental difference in the structure of the foot and the hand, observable when the carpus and the tarsus are contrasted; and there are differences of degree noticeable when the proportions and the mobility of the metacarpals and metatarsals, with their respective digits, are compared together.
Essays 2007
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Mr. Stead began moving his hand down the leg. At each probing pause I mentally named the unseen bone: radius, carpus, metacarpus.
Firehorse Diane Lee Wilson 2006
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