Path. Also 6–8 tenasmus; β. (from Fr.) 6–7 tenasm(e, 7 tinesm. [med.L. tēnesmus, tēnasmus (Du Cange), = L. tēnesmos (Pliny), a. Gr. τεινεσμός, τηνεσμός straining, f. τείνειν to stretch, strain. So F. ténesme (16th c.).] A continual inclination to void the contents of the bowels or bladder, accompanied by straining, but with little or no discharge.
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, D ij b. Payne of the gutte of the fondament named tenasmus, that is whan a man thynketh that he wolde go to stole, but he can do nothyng.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, II. xxviii. 182. Good for them that haue the laske, the blouddie flixe and Tenasme.
1601. Holland, Pliny (1634), II. 443. The broth of fish … dispatcheth those sharp and fretting humors which are the cause of the Tinesm.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, in Aliments, etc., 423. Attended with a Tenesmus.
1748. Anson’s Voy., I. iv. 39. Afflicted with fluxes and tenasmus’s.
1754–64. Smellie, Midwif., I. 120. Something like a tenesmus at the os uteri.
1876. Bristowe, The. & Pract. Med. (1878), 684.
fig. 1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., vi. Wks. 1851, III. 294. This letter of Pedagoguisme that bespreads him with such a tenasmus of originating.
1669. Address to Hopeful Young Gentry England, 48. That exulcerate feebleness of reason, which by an impotent tenesmus betrays the infirmities of those, we almost Idoliz’d, to scorn and hatred.
Hence Tenesmic a., of, pertaining to, or of the nature of tenesmus.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
