meniscus
English
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Reading_the_meniscus.svg/220px-Reading_the_meniscus.svg.png)
B: The top of a convex meniscus.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Concavo-convex_ie_Meniscus_lens_section.jpg/70px-Concavo-convex_ie_Meniscus_lens_section.jpg)
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Ancient Greek μηνίσκος (mēnískos, “crescent”), from μήνη (mḗnē, “moon”)
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 333: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "UK" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /mɛˈnɪs.kəs/, /məˈnɪs.kəs/
Audio (US): (file) Audio (AU): (file)
Noun
meniscus (plural meniscuses or menisci)
- A crescent moon, or an object shaped like it. [from 17th c.]
- 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 554:
- And from Crabbe's own forehead sweat dripped or gathered into a kind of meniscus to be scooped off.
- 1972, Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things, McGraw-Hill 1972, p. 19:
- He opened wide both casements; they gave on a parking place four floors below; the thin meniscus overhead was too wan to illumine the roofs of the houses descending toward the invisible lake [...].
- (optics) A lens which is convex on one side and concave on the other, being crescent-shaped in cross-section. [from 17th c.]
- The curved surface of liquids in tubes, whether concave or convex, caused by the surface tension of the liquid. [from 19th c.]
- (anatomy) Either of two parts of the human knee that provide structural integrity to the knee when it undergoes tension and torsion. [from 19th c.]
Translations
the curved surface of liquids
a crescent
either of two parts of the human knee