Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See lockjaw.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A tonic spasm of the muscles of mastication, causing closure of the lower jaw, occurring as a manifestation of tetanus, either alone or in conjunction with other tonic muscular spasms; lockjaw.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Med.) The lockjaw.
WordNet 3.0
- n. prolonged spasm of the jaw muscles
Etymologies
- From New Latin, from Greek τρισμός ("a grinding, rasping, scream"). (Wiktionary)
- New Latin, from Greek trismos, a grinding, variant of trigmos, a scream. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“From this it appears that the trismus is the trismus: but he observes with the greatest modesty that if science knows that the trismus is the trismus, it is entirely ignorant of the cause of this nervous affection, which comes and goes, appears and disappears -- "and," he adds, "we have decided that it is altogether nervous.”
“For traumatic trismus, use the B D current, of vigorous force.”
“This is substantially the same thing as _trismus_, except that it extends to other parts, and often to nearly all the muscles of the organism.”
“The symptoms of poisoning by this species are spasms, similar to those of trismus, and agonizing general pains.”
“The peculiar effects of a tapeworm are exaggerated appetite and thirst, nausea, headaches, vertigo, ocular symptoms, cardiac palpitation, and Mursinna 15.217 has even observed a case of trismus, or lockjaw, due to tænia solium.”
“* [619] In an article on the successful preventive treatment of tetanus neonatorum, or the ` ` scourge of St. Kilda, '' of the new-born, Turner 15.198 says the first mention of trismus nascentium or tetanus neonatorum was made by Rev. Kenneth Macaulay in 1764, after a visit to the island of St. Kilda in 1758.”
“This attack lasted eight or nine months, but in 1848 there was a recurrence accompanied by a slight trismus which lasted over eighteen months, and again in 1860 he was subjected to periods of sleep lasting over twenty-four hours at a time.”
“Mursinna has even observed a case of trismus, or lockjaw, due to taenia solium.”
“In an article on the successful preventive treatment of tetanus neonatorum, or the "scourge of St. Kilda," of the new-born, Turner says the first mention of trismus nascentium or tetanus neonatorum was made by Rev. Kenneth Macaulay in 1764, after a visit to the island of St. Kilda in 1758.”
“In such cases we have complete trismus (lockjaw), and all the head symptoms are acutely developed.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘trismus’.
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phrontistery-t
from phrontistery.info
tabacosis, tabanid, tabaret, tabati?re, tabby, tabefaction, tabellary, tabellion, tabernacle, tabernacular, tabescent, tabific and 930 more...
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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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Words with bite
Words that relate to the teeth, mouth or dentistry in general.
cingulum, furcation, rheostat, velum, mesiobuccal, distobuccal, mesiolingual, distolingual, incisal, occlusal, morsal, labial and 40 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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Twitchy
The (not always so) smoovements; scattered, oscillating, jerky, and unpredictable.
palpitation, scravel, jactitate, pounce, wobble, vibrate, undulate, didder, effleurage, flail, ague, swerve and 169 more...
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corpus medicorum
words describing medical conditions
decubitus, kernicterus, foetor, paroxysm, tarsorrhaphy, balanitis, porphyria, arcus senilis, coitus interruptus, in extremis, la belle indiffer..., xanthelasma and 184 more...
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words for Word
nanoparticle, nanoscale, hadron, ultracold, kiffian, intramolecular, triazine, fermion, superfluid, metamaterial, subduction, perovskite and 53 more...
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surprising words
words that have meanings you didnt expect
Tweets
Looking for tweets for trismus.
whichbe Slightly less fun than Christmas. Aug 22, 2008
chained_bear "'...What do you make of it?'
"'I should have said tetanus without hesitation,' said Stephen, feeling the corpse. 'Here is the most characteristic opisthotonos you could possibly wish, the trismus, the risus sardonicus, the early rigor. Unless indeed he could have taken a wild overdose of St Ignatius' beans, or a decoction of their principle.'"
--Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission, 109 Feb 13, 2008