Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Metacarpal
/ˌmɛtəˈkɑːrpəl/adjective
Belonging to the five long bones between the wrist and the fingers.
The Greek roots
μετά
metá
after, beyond
καρπός
karpós
wrist
Literally: “beyond the wrist”
The story of the word
Greek had two words spelled καρπός, one meaning fruit and one meaning wrist, and the anatomists took the joint. The metacarpals run from the wrist block out to the knuckles, and they are the ridge you feel when you close a fist. Punch a wall and the fifth one goes; every clinic in the world writes it up as a boxer's fracture.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
carpalmetatarsalmetaphorcarpus
In a sentence
The X-ray showed a clean break through the fourth metacarpal.
She could feel the metacarpal bones shifting under the swelling.