Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The part of the human hand that includes the five bones between the fingers and the wrist.
- noun The corresponding part of the forefoot of a quadruped.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In anatomy, the second segment of the manus or terminal division of the fore limb of a vertebrate, considered with reference to its bony structure; the segment which comes between the carpus and the phalanges, corresponding to the metatarsus of the foot.
- noun Same as
actinost .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Anat.) That part of the skeleton of the hand or forefoot between the carpus and phalanges. In man it consists of five bones. See
Illust. ofartiodactyla .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun anatomy The five bones that form intermediate part of the hand between the fingers and the wrist.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the part of the hand between the carpus and phalanges
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Select the wing on the side of the body farthest from the cut, and enter the point of one of the thickest wires in the wing at the end of the part called the "metacarpus" (i, Plate II); push it gently along between the bone and the skin -- meanwhile holding the wing with the left-hand fingers -- along the side of or between the "radius and ulna," finally pushing it into the body at the shoulder, and clenching it when it comes through, which it should do under the opposite wing at the cut.
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Those neck ribs are gone or reduced, they have a long metacarpus and short tails, and they've greatly reduced the cruropatagium.
Darwinopterus and mosaic, modular evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2009
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They tend to have relatively short skulls with several distinct openings, long cervical (neck) ribs, a short metacarpus (like the palm or sole of the foot), a long tail (with some exceptions), and an expanded flight membrane suspended between the hind limbs, called the cruropatagium.
Darwinopterus and mosaic, modular evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2009
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Evidence for unusual soft-tissue structures on the sauropod metacarpus might have been present in other sauropods, according to recently described trackway evidence.
Archive 2006-04-01 Darren Naish 2006
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In contrast, in brachiosaurids it was small, subtriangular in cross-section, and not separated from the rest of the metacarpus.
Archive 2006-04-01 Darren Naish 2006
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This thumb claw varied in size, shape and orientation among the sauropod groups: it was particularly big in diplodocoids, where it was also laterally compressed and notably deep, and clearly separated from the rest of the metacarpus.
Archive 2006-04-01 Darren Naish 2006
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In the same manner, hands, instead of being bestowed for the sake of gloves, are visibly destined for all those uses to which the metacarpus, the phalanges of the fingers, and the movements of the circular muscle of the wrist, render them applicable by us.
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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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It is further absorbed by the shoulder-joint, and from there passed on to the almost vertical bony column represented by the radius and ulna, the knee, and the metacarpus.
Diseases of the Horse's Foot Harry Caulton Reeks
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-- This muscle flexes the second phalanx on the first, the first on the metacarpus, and the entire foot on the forearm.
Diseases of the Horse's Foot Harry Caulton Reeks
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