The Collaborative International Dictionary
Phalanges \Pha*lan"ges\, n., pl. of Phalanx.
Phalanx \Pha"lanx\, n.; pl. Phalanxes, L. Phalanges. [L., from Gr. ?.]
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(Gr. Antiq.) A body of heavy-armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep. There were several different arrangements, the phalanx varying in depth from four to twenty-five or more ranks of men. ``In cubic phalanx firm advanced.''
--Milton.The Grecian phalanx, moveless as a tower.
--Pope. -
Any body of troops or men formed in close array, or any combination of people distinguished for firmness and solidity of a union.
At present they formed a united phalanx.
--Macaulay.The sheep recumbent, and the sheep that grazed, All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed.
--Cowper. A Fourierite community; a phalanstery.
(Anat.) One of the digital bones of the hand or foot, beyond the metacarpus or metatarsus; an internode.
[pl. Phalanges.] (Bot.) A group or bundle of stamens, as in polyadelphous flowers.
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Usage examples of "phalanges".
In rachitis epiphyseal swellings are seen at the wrists and ankle-joints, and in superior cases at the ends of the phalanges of the fingers and toes.
The clavical, humerus, radius, ulna, femur, tibia, fibula, the bones of the metacarpus, metatarsus and the phalanges, are classed as long bones.
It dangles, now, on a piece of green string: her slender index finger, reduced to bare bones but still undeniably elegant, the three phalanges from tip to the base knuckle, clinking against the little conch shells and miniature bivalve fans and trumpet shells and tiny spirals similar to the whorled homes of snails.
When he was six years old it began on the terminal phalanges of the middle fingers.
A myxomatous swelling attacked the phalanges and effected a complete absorption of the terminal phalanx.
The nails on the absorbed phalanges had become small and considerably thickened plates.
No heads, claws, distal phalanges, teeth, or outer integument present.
Talut said, pointing to the six enormous mammoth tusks, wedged in at the base with smaller bones -- parts of spines and phalanges -- with their tips pointing toward the center.
Inside were cords and threads made of mammoth wool, sinew, animal fur, and plant fibers, all carefully wound into circles or around small phalanges of bone.
One searcher thought she was caught by a trap when she squeezed a mostly used tube of adhesive and it stuck the phalanges of a forelimb together.
I know that there is already a thickening of the metacarpals and phalanges, not to mention the carpals themselves.
The fingers were no more than seared bits of meat, strung together along the slender phalanges like some macabre shish kebob.
Blood spurted and he rolled away from me and I stamped on his right hand with my heel and shattered all the carpals and metacarpals and phalanges that he had in there.
Snow now caked her mammoth claws, packed between the phalanges of what had once been her fingers, hardening with each painful step.
Michelangelo to his drawing, working close up now, catching the tensions of the hands, the protrusion about the second phalanges, where the skin was stretched from holding hammer and chisel.