The Collaborative International Dictionary
Deltoid \Del"toid\, a. [Gr. deltoeidh`s delta- shaped; de`lta the name of the letter [Delta] + e'i^dos form: cf. F. delto["i]de. See Delta.]
-
Shaped like the Greek [Delta] (delta); delta-shaped; triangular.
Deltoid leaf (Bot.), a leaf in the form of a triangle with the stem inserted at the middle of the base.
Deltoid muscle (Anat.), a large triangular muscle covering the shoulder joint, which serves to raise the arm directly upward.
of or pertaining to the deltoid muscle.
Wiktionary
n. (context anatomy English) A triangular muscle on the human shoulder.
WordNet
n. a large triangular muscle covering the shoulder joint and serving to abduct and flex and extend and rotate the arm [syn: deltoid, musculus deltoideus]
Wikipedia
In human anatomy, the deltoid muscle is the muscle forming the rounded contour of the shoulder. Anatomically, it appears to be made up of three distinct sets of fibers though electromyography suggests that it consists of at least seven groups that can be independently coordinated by the nervous system.
It was previously called the deltoideus (plural deltoidei) and the name is still used by some anatomists. It is called so because it is in the shape of the Greek capital letter delta (Δ). It is also known as the common shoulder muscle, particularly in other animals such as the domestic cat. Deltoid is also further shortened in slang as "delt".
A study of 30 shoulders revealed an average mass of (range –) in humans.
Usage examples of "deltoid muscle".
Only youth's quickness saved him, but he left the second barb buried in the deltoid muscle of the slave's right arm.
She stretched up and smoothed the back of his collar down over the now exaggerated bulk of his deltoid muscle.
His hand was on the other's shoulder, his saber-hand, and he used willpower to prevent it dosing like a mechanical clamp through the Admiral's deltoid muscle.
A moment later the Charley horse in her deltoid muscle began to let go.
The round had cored through the outer deltoid muscle atop Ryan's left shoulder.
The second, the one that had spun him round, had buried itself deep in his right shoulder, shredding part of the deltoid muscle, and that was the bullet they had to cut out surgically.
The Marine colonel had been a beetlebrowed specimen with no neck, just slabs of deltoid muscle sloping up to his ears.
The Marine colonel had been a beetle-browed specimen with no neck, just slabs of deltoid muscle sloping up to his ears.
And there it was: a slight wave in the silhouette on the right, a bunching of the right deltoid muscle?
Scarlet macaw feathers protruded from a string binding the deltoid muscle of the left arm.
Carefully, gently, he was helping me out of the oilskins and I heard 'the quick indrawing of breath as he saw where I'd torn my shirt-sleeve off at the shoulder, the red-stained wads of gauze with which Mary had plugged both sides of the wound -- the bullet had passed straight through, missing the bone but tearing half the deltoid muscle away -- in the brief minute we'd stopped in the radio shack after we'd come down that ladder again.