Anat. [mod.L. carpus, a. Gr. καρπός wrist.] The part of the skeleton that unites the hand to the fore-arm, consisting in the higher vertebrates of eight small bones, in birds of two. In man it forms the wrist; in the horse, the knee.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 295. John Middleton … whose hand from the Carpus to the end of his middle finger was 17 inches long.
1726. Monro, Anat. (1741), 259. The Hand is … divided into the Carpus, Metacarpus and Fingers.
1833. Sir C. Bell, Hand (1834), 91. The carpus, forming [in the horse] what by a sort of license is called the knee.
1840. G. Ellis, Anat., 417. Other small arteries are given off to the carpus and hand.
