Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Same as furcula, 1.
Wiktionary
- n. anatomy The wishbone or merrythought of birds, formed by the united clavicles.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Anat.) The wishbone or merrythought of birds, formed by the united clavicles.
Etymologies
- Latin, diminutive of Latin furca a fork. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“They lack true eyes, do not possess wings and have, protruding from their abdomens, a "spring tail," called a furculum, (after the Latin word for fork) which is held in place by two tiny hooks.”
“The reason for this is that the natural neck, being carried between the clavicles forming the furculum or "merry-thought," is bent downward and forward between them when perching (see Fig. 22); hence the artificial neck must imitate nature so far as that, when inserted in the skin, it may be also bent forward and downward, and afterwards thrown back on the body in a natural position.”
“The furculum, pelvis, and bones of the tail are in their natural position.”
“The furculum, or merry-thought, which is entire, marks the fore part of the trunk; the ischium, scapula, and most of the wing and leg bones are preserved, and there are impressions of the quill feathers and of down on the body.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘furculum’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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It Has a Name??
Yes. Yes it does.
aglet, armsaye, scroop, rowel, ferrule, rasceta, chanking, philtrum, frenulum, keeper, agelast, punt and 285 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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bloodworm's list
These are words that I enjoy because they are unique, rare, long, or just cool.
circumlocution, hysteresis, schadenfreude, quixotic, loquacious, ennui, sesquipedalian, defenestrate, obfuscate, syzygy, ubiquitous, superfluous and 231 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for furculum.
reesetee Great word, mollusque. While I was reading about it, I discovered it's also called a merrythought (a British term), which I'd never heard before. Dictionary says: "Origin: 1600–10; so called from the custom of pulling the bone apart until it breaks, the person holding the longer (sometimes shorter) piece supposedly marrying first or being granted a wish at the time." Dec 21, 2007
mollusque The wishbone. Dec 21, 2007