Crossword clues for fibula
fibula
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fibula \Fib"u*la\, n.; pl. Fibul[AE]. [L., clasp, buckle.]
-
A brooch, clasp, or buckle.
Mere fibul[ae], without a robe to clasp.
--Wordsworth. (Anat.) The outer and usually the smaller of the two bones of the leg, or hind limb, below the knee.
(Surg.) A needle for sewing up wounds.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1670s, "clasp, buckle, brooch," from Latin fibula "clasp, brooch," related to figere "to fasten, fix" (see fix (v.)). In reference to brooches, the modern English word mostly is used in archaeology. As "smaller bone in the lower leg" from 1706, from a Latin loan-translation of Greek perone "small bone in the lower leg," originally "clasp, brooch; anything pointed for piercing or pinning;" the bone was so called because it resembles a clasp such as that found in a modern safety pin. Related: Fibular.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context anatomy English) The smaller of the two bones in the lower leg, the calf bone. 2 An ancient kind of brooch used to hold clothing together, similar in function to the modern safety pin.
WordNet
Wikipedia
The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone located on the lateral side of the tibia, with which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones, and, in proportion to its length, the slenderest of all the long bones. Its upper extremity is small, placed toward the back of the head of the tibia, below the level of the knee joint, and excluded from the formation of this joint. Its lower extremity inclines a little forward, so as to be on a plane anterior to that of the upper end; it projects below the tibia, and forms the lateral part of the ankle-joint.
[[ Brooch.JPG|thumb|Lombardic gilded silver brooch from Tuscany, c.600 AD, one of the largest of its kind ( British Museum)
]]
A fibula (/ˈfɪbjʊlə/, plural fibulae /ˈfɪbjʊli/) is a brooch or pin for fastening garments. The fibula developed in a variety of shapes, but all were based on the safety-pin principle. Technically, the Latin term, fibulae, refers to Roman brooches; however, the term is widely used to refer to brooches from the entire ancient and early medieval world that continue Roman forms. Nevertheless, its use in English is more restricted than in other languages, and in particular post-Roman brooches from the British Isles are just called brooches (for example, the penannular brooches), where in German they would probably be fibulae.
Unlike most modern brooches, fibulae were not only decorative; they originally served a practical function: to fasten clothing, such as cloaks. Fibulae replaced straight pins that were used to fasten clothing in the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age. In turn, fibulae were replaced as clothing fasteners by buttons in the Middle Ages. Their descendant, the modern safety pin, remains in use today. In ancient Rome and other places where Latin was used, the same word denoted both a brooch and the fibula bone because a popular form for brooches and the shape of the bone were thought to resemble one another.
There are hundreds of different types of fibulae. They are usually divided into families that are based upon historical periods, geography, and/or cultures. Fibulae are also divided into classes that are based upon their general forms.
Usage examples of "fibula".
In the latter also the fibula, which is anchylosed to the end of the tibia, articulates with the calcaneum or heel-bone, which is not the case with the simple-toothed rodents.
He had proceeded to beat Bissonette with the bat all across his body, fracturing bones in both his arms, his fibula, his patella, his coxae, five ribs, and his skull, leaving a five-inch dent in the side of his head.
There is a groove in the fibula just below the knee where the lateral popliteal nerve passes close against the bone.
I hissed as one of the soldiers made a grab for me, tearing my tunica from the fibula that held it at the shoulder so that it fell, leaving one breast bare.
THE BONES OF THE LOWER EXTREMITIES, sixty in number, are classed as follows: The Femur, Patella, Tibia, Fibula, Tarsus, Metatarsus, and Phalanges.
The clavical, humerus, radius, ulna, femur, tibia, fibula, the bones of the metacarpus, metatarsus and the phalanges, are classed as long bones.
The right humerus, the right tibia and fibula, a refracture of the left tibia and a new one of the left ankle.
I could not imagine a more graceful curve than that of the os femoris, and there was just that due gentle prominence in the rear of the fibula which goes to the conformation of a properly proportioned calf.
They suggested carving the shinbones, the fibulas of this human product I am, shaping the bones and grafting them to build me, build the product, a new jawbone.
The pelvic bones appeared to be still joined, but the femur, tibia, and fibulas were tangled together in a heap, like bleached kindling.
There were no late-twentieth-century gadgets such the Single Photon Absorptiometer or scintillation detectors to estimate height based on the length of the humerus, radius, ulna, femur, tibia, and fibula - the long bones of the arms and legs.
His only clothing was a golden rectangle of cloth wound about his waist and pinned by a simple gold fibula.
Nerves that are particularly vulnerable to this include the ulnar nerve, which runs through the funny-bone channel in your elbow, and the peroneal nerve, which runs through a similar channel at the top of the fibula near the knee.
Abel Black, foretopman, starboard watch, a perfectly ordinary cracked fibula (had stumbled over a misplaced bucket in the dark) was on the point of bursting.
Starlight slanting through the entrance showed him a cross section of skulls, splintered tibiae and fibulae, ribcages like lightless lanterns.