| floating ribs | The two lower ribs on either side that are not attached anteriorly. Synonym: costae fluitantes, costae fluctuantes, vertebral ribs. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| floating | 1. Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air. 2. Free or lose from the usual attachment; as, the floating ribs in man and some other animals. 3. Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined; as, floating capital; a floating debt. "Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island. <medicine>" (Macaulay) Floating anchor See Dock. Floating harbor, a breakwater of cages or booms, anchored and fastened together, and used as a protection to ships riding at anchor to leeward. <botany> Floating heart, threads which span several other threads without being interwoven with them, in a woven fabric. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| floating cartilage | A loose piece of cartilage within a joint cavity, detached from the articular cartilage or from a meniscus. Synonym: loose cartilage. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating kidney | The abnormally mobile kidney in nephroptosia. Synonym: movable kidney, wandering kidney. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating organ | An organ with loose attachments, permitting its displacement. Synonym: floating organ, ptotic organ. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating patella | A patella riding high on effusion of the knee. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating spleen | A spleen that is palpable because of excessive mobility from a relaxed or lengthened pedicle rather than because of enlargement. Synonym: lien mobilis, movable spleen. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating villus | A chorionic villus that is not attached to the decidua basalis, but is "free" in the maternal blood of the intervillous spaces. Synonym: floating villus. (05 Mar 2000) |
| free-floating anxiety | In psychoanalysis, a pervasive unrealistic expectation unattached to a clearly formulated concept or object of fear; observed particularly in anxiety neurosis and may be seen in some cases of latent schizophrenia. (05 Mar 2000) |
| articular surface of head of rib | An articular surface on the head of a rib that articulates with the body of a vertebra. Synonym: facies articularis capitis costae. (05 Mar 2000) |
| articular surface of tubercle of rib | An oval facet on the inferomedial part of the tubercle of a rib for articulation with a facet on the transverse process of a vertebra. Synonym: facies articularis tuberculi costae. (05 Mar 2000) |
| bicipital rib | Fusion of first thoracic rib with cervical vertebra. (05 Mar 2000) |
| bifid rib | One in which the body bifurcates. (05 Mar 2000) |
| body of rib | The shaft of a rib; the portion which extends laterally, anteriorly, and then medially from the tubercle. Synonym: corpus costae. (05 Mar 2000) |
| radiate ligament of head of rib | The radiate, stellate, or anterior costovertebral ligament connecting the head of each rib to the bodies of the two vertebrae with which it articulates. Synonym: ligamentum capitis costae radiatum, ligamentum radiatum, radiate ligament, stellate ligament. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cervical rib | A rib which arises from the seventh cervical vertebrae (above the normal first rib). Occurs in only about 0.5% of people. May cause nerve and artery problems. (12 Dec 1998) |