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Sternum   Listen
noun
Sternum  n.  (pl. L. sterna, E. sternums)  
1.
(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.
2.
(Zool.) The ventral part of any one of the somites of an arthropod.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sternum" Quotes from Famous Books



... the lungs enclosed in the movable thorax. The latter may be likened to a cage; it is formed by the spine behind and the ribs, which are attached by cartilages to the breastbone (sternum) in front (vide fig. 1). The ribs and cartilages, as the diagram shows, form a series of hoops which increase in length from above downwards; moreover, they slope obliquely downwards and inwards (vide fig. 2). ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott

... cuckoos do not hatch their own eggs; the impediment, he supposes, arises from the internal structure of their parts, which incapacitates them for incubation. According to this gentleman, the crop, or craw, of a cuckoo does not lie before the sternum at the bottom of the neck, as in the gallinae, columbae, etc., but immediately behind it, on and over the bowels, so as to make a large protuberance in ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... relieving inflammatory pains, and removing fever, I have seen many instances, as mentioned in Sect. XII. 2. 4. One lady, whom I attended, had twice at some years interval a locked jaw, which relieved a pain on her sternum with peripneumony. Two other ladies I saw, who towards the end of violent peripneumony, in which they frequently lost blood, were at length cured by insanity supervening. In the former the increased voluntary exertion of the muscles of the jaw, in the latter that of the organs ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... body of the rabbit, as examined from the outside, we can make out by feeling two distinct regions, just as we might in the body of a man; anteriorily a bony cage, having the ribs at the sides, a rod-like bone in the front, the sternum (Figure 1 -st.-, [stm.]), and the backbone behind, and called the chest or thorax; and posteriorily a part called the abdomen, which has no bony protection over its belly, or ventral surface. These parts together with the neck constitute the trunk. As a consequence of these things, in the ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... matter how useful it is for the FBI to have an 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 sighed again. ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett



Words linked to "Sternum" :   manubrium, bone, gladiolus, axial skeleton, pectus, thorax, breastbone, corpus sternum, chest, sternal



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