voluntary muscle

American  

noun

Anatomy.

1. muscle whose action is normally controlled by an individual's will; mainly skeletal muscle, composed of parallel bundles of striated, multinucleate fibers.

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Usage

What are voluntary muscles? A voluntary muscle is a muscle that you choose to move, like those in the arms and legs, as opposed to the ones that move automatically, like the heart.Muscle is the tissue in animals that produces movement or motion. Voluntary means done out of free will or by choice. Voluntary muscles are also often called skeletal muscles (because all of the muscles attached to the skeleton are voluntary muscles) or striated muscles (because the muscle fibers make them look striated, or stripy).Example: Around 40 percent of a human’s body mass is made up of voluntary muscles.

Etymology

Origin of voluntary muscle

First recorded in 1780–90