Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Body or muscular tone; tonicity.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A condition of preparedness in an organ or tissue to perform its normal function as soon as the customary stimulus is applied.
- n. Tonicity.
- n. Tonic spasm.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Tonicity, or tone.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli
Etymologies
- Latin, tone; see tone.
Examples
“In the frog's tongue, capillary tonus is very strongly developed, in that by far the majority are completely contracted.”
“This tonus is influenced by the stimulation of the vestibular apparatus in the regular manner already indicated.”
“If one performs the same experiment with the tongue, many hours must elapse before a similar reaction occurs, and even the slightest blood supply is adequate to maintain tonus.”
“William Cullen (1712-90) accepting irritability as his starting-point, supposes a "tonus" or fluid inherent in the nerves (Newton's ether), whose stronger or weaker motions produce either a spasm or atony.”
“a centre for the tonus which is directed against the sagittal axis of the body, i.e. «inwards» and also a centre for the tonus away from this axis, i.e. «outwards».”
“In the traditional Roman Rite, this Psalm was sung each Sunday night at Vespers, and it has a special tone that is normally reserved for it alone: the tonus peregrinus, or "pilgrim tone," music well suited to this Psalm of the wandering of God's People in their search for the Holy Land.”
“The synagogue gave to the Early Christian church some of its ancient melodies; the recitation formula of the psalm B'tset Yisrael "When Israel went forth out of Egypt", for example, survives in the Gregorian chant repertoire as the tonus peregrinus.”
“Au bout de 5 ou dix minutes d'attente interminable, je recupere un peu de tonus musculaire mais je suis affreusement crevé.”
“Dans sa forme la plus typique il y a également des accès de chute brutale du tonus musculaire (on parle de cataplexie) déclenchée par les émotions: fou rire, surprise, colère, excitation ”
“It can very easily be shown that blood flow is a condition for the maintenance of tonus, but that dependence on the blood is very varied.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tonus’.
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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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