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meniscus

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 20 July 2008
A: The bottom of a concave meniscus.
B: The top of a convex meniscus.
Notional section through Meniscus lens, showing it to be concavo-convex, with a positive focus because it is thicker in the middle than the edge
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Etymology

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Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *meh₁-?
Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s
Proto-Hellenic *méns
Ancient Greek μείς (meís)
Proto-Indo-European *-iskos
Ancient Greek -ῐ́σκος (-ĭ́skos)
Ancient Greek μηνῐ́σκος (mēnĭ́skos)
English meniscus

    From Ancient Greek μηνίσκος (mēnískos, “crescent”), from μήνη (mḗnē, “moon”). Piecewise doublet of moonish.

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    meniscus (plural meniscuses or menisci)

    1. A crescent moon, or an object shaped like it. [from 17th c.]
      • 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 554:
        And from Crabbe's own forehead sweat dripped or gathered into a kind of meniscus to be scooped off.
      • 1972, Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things, McGraw-Hill, published 1972, page 19:
        He opened wide both casements; they gave on a parking place four floors below; the thin meniscus overhead was too wan to illumine the roofs of the houses descending toward the invisible lake [...].
    2. (optics) A lens which is convex on one side and concave on the other, being crescent-shaped in cross-section. [from 17th c.]
    3. The curved surface of liquids in tubes, whether concave or convex, caused by the surface tension of the liquid. [from 19th c.]
    4. (anatomy) Either of two parts of the human knee that provide structural integrity to the knee when it undergoes tension and torsion. [from 19th c.]

    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    See also

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