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tendon

UK/ˈtɛn.dən/US/ˈtɛn.dən/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,233 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: tendons

A tendon is the tough cord that ties a muscle to a bone. The Achilles tendon, a torn tendon, tendon injury.

It has very little blood supply of its own, which is why a tendon takes months to heal where a muscle takes weeks. A ligament is the different thing that ties bone to bone. The Achilles is the thickest and strongest in the body.

Nephron · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of tendon

  1. 1nountendonThe tough cord that ties a muscle to a bone.B2+

    “The footballer tore a tendon in his ankle and will miss the rest of the season.”

tendon is a body part.

Where it comes from

Medieval Latin tendo comes from Greek tenon, a sinew, and was reshaped by Latin tendere, to stretch.

  1. Ancient Greek

    τένων — sinew, tendon

  2. Medieval Latin

    tendō

  3. French

    tendon

  4. English, today

    tendon

Built from

  • tendō · Latin — to stretch

Borrowed from French tendon or Medieval Latin tendō, from Ancient Greek τένων (“sinew, tendon”), modified by association with the verb tendō (“to stretch”). Compare Middle English thenoun.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Body & Health

Practise this word

tendon in the wild

  • The difference is that ligaments connect bone to bone, while tendons connect muscle to bone.

    Tendon

  • There are about 4,000 tendons in the adult human body.

    Tendon

  • Typically, little inflammation remains after a few weeks, assuming that the underlying problem is related to weak or disrupted tendon fibrils.

    Tendinopathy

  • The Achilles tendon was named in 1693 after the Greek hero Achilles.

    Achilles tendon

  • While pre-tensioned concrete uses tendons directly bonded to the concrete, post-tensioned concrete can use either bonded or unbonded tendons.

    Prestressed concrete

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the tendō family

pretendattendintense

tendon — used about once every 5,793 pages · #10,233 · point at the bar for the others