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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A crescent-shaped body.
  2. n. A concavo-convex lens.
  3. n. The curved upper surface of a nonturbulent liquid in a container that is concave if the liquid wets the container walls and convex if it does not.
  4. n. A cartilage disk that acts as a cushion between the ends of bones that meet in a joint.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A crescent or crescentshaped body. Specifically
  2. n. A lens, convex on one side and concave on the other, and thicker in the center, so that its section presents the appearance of the moon in its first quarter. As the convexity exceeds the concavity, a meniscus may be regarded as a convex lens (also called a converging meniscus); the corresponding form in which the convexity is less than the concavity is sometimes but improperly called a diverging meniscus. See cut under lens.
  3. n. The convex or concave surface of a liquid, caused by capillarity: thus, the mercury in a barometer has a convex meniscus, but spirit or water a concave meniscus.
  4. n. In anatomy, an interarticular fibrocartilage, of a rounded, oval, disklike, or falcate shape, situated between the ends of bones, in the interior of joints, attached by the margins. Such cartilages are found in man in the tem-poromaxillary, the sternoclavicular, and sometimes the acromioclavicular articulations, and in the wrist- and knee-joints.
  5. n. In zoology, a peculiar organ, of doubtful function, found in Echinorhynchus, a genus of acanthocephalous parasitic worms.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A crescent.
  2. n. (Opt.) A lens convex on one side and concave on the other.
  3. n. (Anat.) An interarticular synovial cartilage or membrane; esp., one of the intervertebral synovial disks in some parts of the vertebral column of birds.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. (anatomy) a disk of cartilage that serves as a cushion between the ends of bones that meet at a joint
  2. n. (optics) a lens that is concave on one side and convex on the other
  3. n. (physics) the curved upper surface of a nonturbulent liquid in a vertical tube

Etymologies

  1. From Ancient Greek μηνίσκος (mēniskos, "crescent"), from μήνη (mēnē, "moon") (Wiktionary)
  2. New Latin, from Greek mēniskos, diminutive of mēnē, moon, month. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Lists

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Comments

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  • artbizness I only find myself using this word when I'm filling up baby-bottles with water and Aptamil. Sep 20, 2008

  • chained_bear "'Let us wait for the rain: have you looked at the glass?'

    'I have not.'

    'It began dropping in the first dog watch. It has already reached twenty-nine inches and it is still falling: look at the meniscus.'"
    --O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, 104 Mar 14, 2008

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‘meniscus’ has been looked up 2460 times, loved by 3 people, added to 41 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 12.