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ligament

noun

Simple meaning

A sheet or band of tough fibrous tissue connecting bones or cartilages or supporting muscles or organs.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

liguhmuhnt

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈlɪɡəmənt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. anatomy

    A sheet or band of tough fibrous tissue connecting bones or cartilages or supporting muscles or organs

  2. anatomy

    A band of strong tissue that connects bones to other bones.

  3. figurative

    That which binds or acts as a ligament.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient
Frequency
Uncommon

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A sheet or band of tough fibrous tissue connecting bones or cartilages or supporting muscles or organs

Used this way, ligament is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Medicine/healthcare
  • Science
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

broad ligamentround ligamentperiodontal ligamentinguinal ligamentcapsular ligamentpatellar ligamentcollateral ligamentlongitudinal ligament

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • falciform ligamentnounCompound term

    A ligament that attaches part of the liver to the diaphragm and the abdominal wall.

  • round ligament of the uterusnounCompound term

    Ligament attached to the uterus on either side in front of and below the opening of the Fallopian tube and passing through the inguinal canal to the labia majora.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • ligamentum teres uterinounRelated term

    Ligament attached to the uterus on either side in front of and below the opening of the Fallopian tube and passing through the inguinal canal to the labia majora.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.