regular muscle-prism
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.39 in modern English
27
Scrabble Score
18
Letters
7
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A simplified, geometric block representing a bundle of parallel muscle fibers; an old teaching model used for explaining tension, cross-sections, and electrical properties of muscle.
Example Sentences
- "Taking a regularly shaped muscle in which the fibres are parallel, we will cut out a part of this by making two even cuts at right angles to the direction of the fibres. A piece of this sort may be called a regular muscle-prism. It is, according to the shape of the muscle used, either circular or more oval, or flat and band-like ... all the muscle-fibres are parallel to each other, [and] the two cuts are made at right angles to the direction of the fibres."
- "... and a muscle of regular shape, in which the fibers are parallel, is selected. The ends are cut off by clean vertical cuts, and the resulting piece of muscle is called a regular muscle prism."
- "When the muscle is at rest the contents of the muscle prism will be in equilibrium with the surrounding sarcoplasm ... pressure in the muscle prism rises and causes a bulging of its lateral wall and a shortening of the whole element."
Etymology
Inflected Forms
regular muscle-prisms (plural)