Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In zoöl. and anat.:
  • noun A spine, in any sense.
  • noun The Spine, or spinal column; the backbone: more fully called spina dorsalis or spina dorsi, also columna spinalis.
  • noun In ornithology, a genus of fringilline birds, the type of which is S. lesbia of southern Europe. Kaup, 1829. Also called Buscarla. See Spinus.
  • noun In Roman antiquity, a barrier dividing the hippodrome longitudinally, about which the racers turned.
  • noun One of the quills of a spinet or similar instrument.
  • noun A slender projection from the upper, median portion of a bird's sternum, just between the articulations of the coracoids.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And I want to share a study done on Chinese babies who had a birth defect known as spina bifida.

    Mark Hyman, MD: Nutrition Tips: Folic Acid: Killer or Cure-All? 2010

  • The baby had suffered from a condition commonly known as spina bifida and was severely deformed.

    This Family of Mine VICTORIA GOTTI 2009

  • Then early this morning she will go to Atlanta On a commercial flight, where she'll undergo treatment for a spinal cord defect called spina bifida, very serious form of that disease.

    CNN Transcript Dec 30, 2005 2005

  • And then later on this evening, in the early hours of tomorrow morning, she will be on a commercial flight to Atlanta, where she'll undergo treatment for, as you mentioned, that spinal cord defect called spina bifida.

    CNN Transcript Dec 30, 2005 2005

  • However, if a woman who's pregnant with in the first four weeks of pregnancy develops a fever from the flu up to 102, there is a slightly increased risk of a birth defect called spina bifida.

    CNN Transcript Nov 30, 2003 2003

  • The study confirmed something known as spina bifida, which was long been linked to a nutritional deficiency of folate is also linked to overweight or obese child-bearing age women.

    CNN Transcript May 6, 2003 2003

  • And our joint work most recently discovered the important role of folic acid in dealing with a health condition called spina bifida, which is a profound problem for some children in the United States which I think is very important.

    Remarks By The President At Chinese Press Roundtable ITY National Archives 1998

  • We have also had scientific research which has helped us to uncover the cause of a condition in newborn babies, called spina bifida, that is caused in part by the mother's having not enough folic acid.

    Remarks By The President In Shanghai Radio Show ITY National Archives 1998

  • —Occasionally the coalescence of the laminæ is not completed, and consequently a cleft is left in the arches of the vertebræ, through which a protrusion of the spinal membranes (dura mater and arachnoid), and generally of the medulla spinalis itself, takes place, constituting the malformation known as spina bifida.

    II. Osteology. 3b. The Vertebral Column as a Whole 1918

  • At the front part of the auricula, where the helix bends upward, is a small projection of cartilage, called the spina helicis, while in the lower part of the helix the cartilage is prolonged downward as a tail-like process, the cauda helicis; this is separated from the antihelix by a fissure, the fissura antitragohelicina.

    X. The Organs of the Senses and the Common Integument. 1d. 1. The External Ear 1918

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