percuss
Americanverb (used with object)
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Medicine/Medical. to strike or tap for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes.
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to strike (something) so as to shake or cause a shock to.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to strike sharply, rapidly, or suddenly
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med to tap on (a body surface) with the fingertips or a special hammer to aid diagnosis or for therapeutic purposes
Other Word Forms
- percussor noun
- unpercussed adjective
Etymology
Origin of percuss
1550–60; < Latin percussus, past participle of percutere to strike hard, beat, equivalent to per- per- + -cut ( ere ), combining form of quatere to shake ( quash ) + -tus past participle suffix, with tt > ss
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.
Touch: wood, iron, glass, steel, sometimes thrumming softly, sometimes percussing like a tight drum.
From Seattle Times
P waves percuss the rock like a drumstick, traveling quickly through incompressible material.
From Science Magazine
The doctor knelt at the bedside to perform the time-honored tradition of percussing the heart.
From New York Times
I percussed the abdomen and found an enormously enlarged and indurated spleen, reaching beyond the navel and pushing up the thoracic viscera.
From Project Gutenberg
This in my hands has been of great assistance in percussing the limits of the heart dullness.
From Project Gutenberg
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.
