[L., verbal sb. f. crepāre to crack, rattle, creak, etc.]
1. Med. and Path. = CREPITATION 2.
1807–26. S. Cooper, First Lines Surg. (ed. 5), 275. Great unnecessary pain [has] frequently been occasioned by the custom of feeling for a crepitus, and moving the [fractured] limb about … in order to produce it.
1878. A. M. Hamilton, Nerv. Dis., 115. There is crepitus or rattling in the breathing.
1882. Syd. Soc. Lex., Crepitus, the crackling noise occasioned by pressing a part of the body when air is collected in the cellular tissue.
2. The breaking of wind: usually crepitus ventris.
1882. Syd. Soc. Lex., Crepitus, term for the discharge upwards, or rejection downwards, of gas or flatus from the stomach and bowels.
