abducens

English [edit]

Shortening of "abducens nerve", in turn from Latin nervus abducens, from abducent, abducens

abducens (plural abducentes)

(anatomy) The abducens nerve: the nerve in humans and most animals that governs the motion of the lateral rectus muscle of the eye. [Early 19^th century.]^[1]
- 1895, System of Surgery, volume 2, page 672:
  
  Although the abducens runs in a fissure along the so-often fractured petrous bone, a rupture of the nerve-trunk has never been noticed in autopsies save once

^ 2003 [1933], Brown, Lesley editor, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, edition 5th, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-860575-7, page 3:

Present active participle of abdūcō (“take away”).

abducēns m, f, and n (genitive abducentis); third declension

¹ But abducentī when used purely as an adjective.