Adjacent Words

Muscle definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

MUS'CLE, n. [L. musculus, a muscle,and a little mouse.]
1. In anatomy,the muscles are the organs of motion, consisting of fibers or bundles of fibers inclosed in a thin cellular membrane. The muscles are susceptible of contraction and relaxation, and in a healthy state the proper muscles are subject to the will, and are called voluntary muscles. But other parts of the body, as the heart, the urinary bladder, the stomach, etc. are of a muscular texture, and susceptible of contraction and dilatation, but are not subject to the will, and are therefore called involuntary muscles. The red color of the muscles is owing to the blood vessels which they contain. The ends of the muscles are fastened to the bones which they move, and when they act in opposition to each other, they are called antagonists.
Muscles are divided into the head, belly and tail. The head is the part fixed on the immovable joint called its origin, and is usually tendinous; the belly is the middle fleshy part,which consists of the true muscular fibers; the tail is the tendinous portion inserted into the part to be moved, called the insertion; but in the tendon, the fibers are more compact than in the belly of the muscle,and do not admit the red globules.
2. A bivalvular shell fish of the genus Mytilus; sometimes written mussel.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: one of the contractile organs of the body [syn: muscle, musculus]
2: animal tissue consisting predominantly of contractile cells [syn: muscle, muscular tissue]
3: a bully employed as a thug or bodyguard; "the drug lord had his muscleman to protect him" [syn: muscleman, muscle]
4: authority or power or force (especially when used in a coercive way); "the senators used their muscle to get the party leader to resign"
5: possessing muscular strength [syn: brawn, brawniness, muscle, muscularity, sinew, heftiness] v
1: make one's way by force; "He muscled his way into the office"

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Usage: often attributive Etymology: Middle English, from Latin musculus, from diminutive of mus mouse — more at mouse Date: 14th century 1. a. a body tissue consisting of long cells that contract when stimulated and produce motion b. an organ that is essentially a mass of muscle tissue attached at either end to a fixed point and that by contracting moves or checks the movement of a body part 2. a. muscular strength ; brawn b. effective strength ; power <political muscle> II. verb (muscled; muscling) Date: 1913 transitive verb to move or force by or as if by muscular effort <muscled him out of office> intransitive verb to make one's way by brute strength or by force

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 a fibrous tissue with the ability to contract, producing movement in or maintaining the position of an animal body. 2 the part of an animal body that is composed of muscles. 3 physical power or strength. --v.intr. (usu. foll. by in) colloq. force oneself on others; intrude by forceful means. Phrases and idioms: muscle-bound with muscles stiff and inelastic through excessive exercise or training. muscle-man a man with highly developed muscles, esp. one employed as an intimidator. not move a muscle be completely motionless. Derivatives: muscled adj. (usu. in comb.). muscleless adj. muscly adj. Etymology: F f. L musculus dimin. of mus mouse, from the fancied mouselike form of some muscles

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Muscle Mus"cle, n. [F., fr. L. musculus a muscle, a little mouse, dim. of mus a mouse. See Mouse, and cf. sense 3 (below).] 1. (Anat.) (a) An organ which, by its contraction, produces motion. See Illust. of Muscles of the Human Body, in Appendix. (b) The contractile tissue of which muscles are largely made up. Note: Muscles are of two kinds, striated and nonstriated. The striated muscles, which, in most of the higher animals, constitute the principal part of the flesh, exclusive of the fat, are mostly under the control of the will, or voluntary, and are made up of great numbers of elongated fibres bound together into bundles and inclosed in a sheath of connective tissue, the perimysium. Each fiber is inclosed in a delicate membrane (the sarcolemma), is made up of alternate segments of lighter and darker material which give it a transversely striated appearance, and contains, scattered through its substance, protoplasmic nuclei, the so-called muscle corpuscles. The nonstriated muscles are involuntary. They constitute a large part of the walls of the alimentary canal, blood vessels, uterus, and bladder, and are found also in the iris, skin, etc. They are made up of greatly elongated cells, usually grouped in bundles or sheets. 2. Muscular strength or development; as, to show one's muscle by lifting a heavy weight. [Colloq.] 3. [AS. muscle, L. musculus a muscle, mussel. See above.] (Zo["o]l.) See Mussel. Muscle curve (Physiol.), contraction curve of a muscle; a myogram; the curve inscribed, upon a prepared surface, by means of a myograph when acted upon by a contracting muscle. The character of the curve represents the extent of the contraction.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(muscles, muscling, muscled) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. A muscle is a piece of tissue inside your body which connects two bones and which you use when you make a movement. Keeping your muscles strong and in tone helps you to avoid back problems... He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle... N-VAR 2. If you say that someone has muscle, you mean that they have power and influence, which enables them to do difficult things. Eisenhower used his muscle to persuade Congress to change the law... = clout 3. If a group, organization, or country flexes its muscles, it does something to impress or frighten people, in order to show them that it has power and is considering using it. The Fair Trade Commission has of late been flexing its muscles, cracking down on cases of corruption. PHRASE: V inflects 4. If you say that someone did not move a muscle, you mean that they stayed absolutely still. He stood without moving a muscle, unable to believe what his eyes saw so plainly. PHRASE: V inflects, with brd-neg

Moby Thesaurus

adductor, arm, beef, beefiness, biceps, brawn, brawniness, buccinator, effort, elasticity, elbow grease, endeavor, energy, exert strength, exertion, force, gemellus, gluteus maximus, hard pull, heftiness, huskiness, infraspinatus, intercostal, involuntary muscle, latissimus dorsi, levator, long pull, masseter, mentalis, might, might and main, muscularity, musculature, mylohyoid, nasalis, nerve and sinew, oblique, occipitalis, omohyoid, pains, pectineus, pectoralis, peroneus, physique, potency, power, sinew, sinewiness, sinews, sphincter, strength, strong arm, strong-arm, tensor, thew, thewiness, thews, tone, trapezius, triceps, trouble, use force, voluntary muscle