ligature
Americannoun
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the act of binding or tying up.
The ligature of the artery was done with skill.
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anything that serves for binding or tying up, as a band, bandage, or cord.
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a tie or bond.
the ligature of mutual need that bound them together.
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Printing, Orthography. a stroke or bar connecting two letters.
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Printing. a character or type combining two or more letters, as fl and æ.
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Music.
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a slur.
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a group of notes connected by a slur.
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a metal band for securing the reed of a clarinet or saxophone to the mouthpiece.
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Surgery. a thread or wire for constriction of blood vessels or for removing tumors by strangulation.
verb (used with object)
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ligatures,
present (3rd person singular)
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ligatured,
past participle, past
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ligaturing
present participle
noun
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the act of binding or tying up
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something used to bind
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a link, bond, or tie
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surgery a thread or wire for tying around a vessel, duct, etc, as for constricting the flow of blood to a part
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printing a character of two or more joined letters, such as, fl, ffi, ffl
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music
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a slur or the group of notes connected by it
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(in plainsong notation) a symbol indicating two or more notes grouped together
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verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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ligaturesimple
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ligaturessimple
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have ligaturedperfect
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has ligaturedperfect
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am ligaturingprogressive
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are ligaturingprogressive
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is ligaturingprogressive
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have been ligaturingperfect progressive
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has been ligaturingperfect progressive
Past
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ligaturedsimple
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had ligaturedperfect
-
was ligaturingprogressive
-
were ligaturingprogressive
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had been ligaturingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of ligature
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English word from Late Latin word ligātūra. See ligate, -ure
Explanation
Ligature is when two things are tied or stitched together, and it's also the thread or cord that's used to do the binding. If you hit your head and need stitches, you'll go to the emergency room for ligature. Doctors and nurses are all well-trained in ligature (since they are always stiching people up), but they are not the only people familiar with ligature. When a robber ties up victims before robbing a store, the rope used to tie their hands is also a ligature, and when a musician connects two notes with a slur — singing or playing them as one syllable — that's a ligature too. The word comes from the Latin root ligatura, "a band," from ligare, "to bind."
Vocabulary lists containing ligature
Society and Solitude
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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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Selection Vocabulary 1, Unit 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Instead of the classic single ligature, they used a triple ligature approach on the upper left molar of male mice.
From Science Daily ● May 21, 2024
Investigators suspected the Turners from the beginning, based not only on the ligature, but the couple’s behavior.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 11, 2024
Another challenge in collecting data: Many of these deaths are misclassified as suicide because the subjects are found with a ligature, Rogg said.
From Fox News ● Sep. 2, 2021
“Little masks with over-the-ear loops could not possibly be a ligature risk,” Callison said.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 11, 2020
Every time he grouped notes together with a ligature, he meant that those notes should be shorter than the others.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
DNA on the gum was consistent with DNA found on the ligatures and Weaver’s body, according to the charging documents.
From Seattle Times ● May 4, 2024
Many of the labels are written in Cyrillic, with its gorgeous top hooks and ligatures and swinging tails.
From New York Times ● Feb. 10, 2021
Working on ligatures which will hopefully roll out tomorrow with an option to bypass song cache so the poster will actually update without the ‘?’
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2020
The group estimates there are 350,000 women in Madagascar who can only get family-planning services like implants and tubal ligatures from its mobile clinics.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 9, 2018
The system he used, while not as flexible or sophisticated as the one used today, relied on the grouping together of notes with horizontal bars called ligatures.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Their concentrated, ligatured and rigorous application had a jarring effect: In order to truly behold the work, we had to step away from it, to distance ourselves.
From New York Times ● Mar. 23, 2022
Acting upon this idea, he ligatured his patient’s femoral artery in the lower part of its course in the thigh, in the fibrous sheath enclosing the space since known as “Hunter’s canal.”
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 8 "Hudson River" to "Hurstmonceaux" by Various
A larger vessel may be taken up with the artery forceps and ligatured, or the hæmorrhage stopped by torsion.
From Diseases of the Horse's Foot by Harry Caulton Reeks
Similarly, I have split ligatured characters such as the ligatured "ae" and "oe" frequent in late Latin in particular.
Much clot was removed, and both artery and vein, which were found divided in the adductor canal, were ligatured.
From Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 Being Mainly a Clinical Study of the Nature and Effects of Injuries Produced by Bullets of Small Calibre by George Henry Makins
Joly, namely, that of ligaturing one of the digital arteries on each affected foot.
From Diseases of the Horse's Foot by Harry Caulton Reeks
The experiments of Ancel and Bouin were carried out on rabbits seven to eight weeks old, and consisted in removing one testis, and ligaturing the vas deferens of the other.
From Hormones and Heredity by J. T. Cunningham
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
