a. and sb. Anat. Also 9 erron. æthmoid. [ad. Gr. ἠθμοειδής sieve-like, ‘cribriform’ (Galen has ἠθμοειδὲς ὀστοῦν ethmoid bone), f. ἠθμός sieve: see -OID. Cf. Fr. ethmoïde.]
A. adj. Sieve-like, finely perforated. Ethmoid bone: a square-shaped cellular bone, situated between the two orbits, at the root of the nose, containing many perforations, through which the olfactory nerves pass to the nose.
1741. Monro, Anat. (ed. 3), 80. Joined to the Ethmoid Bone.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 583. It dives into the posterior ethmoid cells.
1854. Owen, in Circ. Sc. (c. 1865), II. 90/1. Parts of the olfactory capsules … forming the compound bone called ‘æthmoid.’
B. quasi-sb. passing into sb. = ethmoid bone.
1842. Col. H. Smith, Nat. Library, xiii. 87. The cranium … may be subdivided into three compartments, the anterior containing the two frontal bones and the æthmoid.
1851. Richardson, Geol., viii. 313. The third the ethmoid with the two frontal.
1858. Geikie, Hist. Boulder, vii. 121. The eye orbits seem to have been at the corners of the intermaxillary, circumscribed by the sub-orbitals and the ethmoids.
Hence Ethmoidal a. a. Of or pertaining to the ethmoid bone. b. = ETHMOID.
a. 1741. Monro, Anat. (ed. 3), The Ethmoidal and Sphenoidal [Sutures] surround the Bones of these Names.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 47. On each side of the ethmoidal notch, there is observed a triangular concave surface.
1842. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M., 282. Ethmoidal arteries pass through the ethmoidal foramina.
b. 1764. Hadley, in Phil. Trans., LIV. 4. The superior maxillary, sphenoïdal and ethmoïdal bones were broken away.
1849. E. Blyth, Cuvier’s Anim. K., 39. The cranium subdivides into three portions: the anterior is formed by the two frontal and the ethmoidal bones.
