a. and sb. Anat. [ad. mod.L. unciform-is, f. L. unc-us hook. So F. and Sp. unciforme.] A. adj. Hook-shaped; esp. unciform bone, process.
(a) 1733–4. G. Douglas, trans. Winslow’s Anat. Expos. (1756), 84. In the fourth Bone … we are to consider the … hooked or Unciform Apophysis.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 105. The inferior turbinated bone … which … seems suspended by its unciform process.
1855. Holden, Hum. Osteol., 74. The unciform process … is connected … with the inferior spongy bone and the superior maxillary bone.
(b) 1840. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M., 198. The Flexor ossis metacarpi … arises from the unciform bone and annular ligament.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, I. ii. 4. The carpus has 8 bones arranged in two rows…. In the second … is the trapezium, the trapezoid, the os magnum, and the unciform bone.
1884. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 107. A carpal bone, supposed to be unciform, later fusing with metacarpus.
B. sb. The unciform bone of the wrist.
Also used in the L. form unciforme (sc. os).
1840. G. V. Ellis, Anat., 439. One is placed on each side of the os magnum, uniting this bone to the trapezoides on the one hand, and to the unciform on the other.
