Other forms: wrists
The wrist is the thin joint between your hand and your arm, where a watch sits. Break your wrist, a flick of the wrist, wrist strap.
It is eight small bones in two rows, which is what lets it bend, twist and take weight — and why a fall on an outstretched hand is such a common fracture. A flick of the wrist is what makes a good throw. Note the silent w, which was once pronounced.
1nounwristThe joint between the hand and the arm.
“She wore a silver watch on her left wrist.”
wrist is a joint.
Old English wrist comes from a Germanic root about twisting. Writhe and wrest come from the same twisting.
Proto-Indo-European
*wreyt-
Proto-Germanic
*wristuz
Proto-West Germanic
*wristu
Old English
wrist
Middle English
wrist
English, today
wrist
From Middle English wrist, from Old English wrist, from Proto-West Germanic wristu, from Proto-Germanic wristuz (compare Old Frisian wrist, Low German Wrist, German Rist (“back of hand, instep, withers”), Swedish vrist), from Proto-Germanic wrīþaną (“to twist, turn”). More at writhe.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA