flexor

[flek-ser]

noun Anatomy.

a muscle that serves to flex or bend a part of the body.

Origin of flexor

From New Latin, dating back to 1605–15; see origin at flex¹, -tor

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for flexor

Historical Examples of flexor

It is more marked in the extensor than in the flexor groups of muscles.
Manual of Surgery
Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
Dorsal flexion is checked by the flexor tendons and dorsal ligaments.
Lameness of the Horse
John Victor Lacroix
The thumb-groove is usually chamfered out very thoroughly so as to fit the flexor muscle conveniently.
Throwing-sticks in the National Museum
Otis T. Mason
The first Flexor is nam'd Sublimis, and the other Profundus.
The Compleat Surgeon, or the Whole Art of Surgery Explain'd in a Most Familiar Method
Charles Gabriel Le Clerc
In other cases the flexor muscles of the fore limbs are contracted so that the latter are strongly bent at the knee.
Special Report on Diseases of the Horse
United States Department of Agriculture

British Dictionary definitions for flexor

flexor

noun

any muscle whose contraction serves to bend a joint or limbCompare extensor

Word Origin for flexor

C17: New Latin; see flex

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for flexor

1610s, Modern Latin, short for musculus flexor "a bending muscle," agent noun from past participle stem of Latin flectere "to bend" (see flexible).

flexor in Medicine