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/θˈɔræks/ Listen

noun

Thorax n.

(Anat.) The part of the trunk between the neck and the abdomen, containing that part of the body cavity the walls of which are supported by the dorsal vertebrae, the ribs, and the sternum, and which the heart and lungs are situated; the chest. Note: In mammals the thoracic cavity is completely separated from the abdominal by the diaphragm, but in birds and many reptiles the separation is incomplete, while in other reptiles, and in amphibians and fishes, there is no marked separation and no true thorax.

(Zool.)

(a)

The middle region of the body of an insect, or that region which bears the legs and wings. It is composed of three united somites, each of which is composed of several distinct parts.

(b)

The second, or middle, region of the body of a crustacean, arachnid, or other articulate animal. In the case of decapod Crustacea, some writers include under the term thorax only the three segments bearing the maxillipeds; others include also the five segments bearing the legs.

(Antiq.) A breastplate, cuirass, or corselet; especially, the breastplate worn by the ancient Greeks.

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Etymology of 'Thorax'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Thorax" Quotes from Famous Books

... year or eighteen months of life, the rounded infantile shape of body persists. The limbs are short and thick, the cheeks full and rounded, the thorax and pelvis are small, the abdomen relatively large and full. The great adipose deposit in the subcutaneous tissue serves as a depot in which water is stored in large amounts. In the healthy child of normal development by the end of the second year a great change ...

— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... greedily takes in her mouth the extended and sugared tongue of the dead insect; then once more she presses the neck and the thorax, and once more applies the pressure of her abdomen to the honey-sac of the bee. The honey oozes forth and is instantly licked up. Thus the bee is gradually compelled to disgorge the contents of the crop. This atrocious meal lasts often half an hour and longer, until ...

— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... surface. But this morning the trick would not work. Not one spider would keep her hold. But with a piece of wire bent at the end in the shape of a hook, he finally lifted one out upon the ground. How bright and clean and untouched she looked! Her limbs and a part of the thorax were as black as jet and shone as if they had just been polished. No lady in her parlor could have been freer from any touch of soil or earth-stain than was she. On the ground, in the strong sunlight, she seemed to be lost. We turned her around and tried to induce her to enter ...

— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... which is used in its construction. In characters the differences of the two forms are so slight as to be distinguishable only by the expert. V. vulgaris often has black spots on the tibiae, which are wanting in germanica. A horizontal yellow stripe on the thorax is enlarged downwards in the middle in germanica, not in vulgaris. There are distinct though slight differences in the genital appendages of the males in the two species. Here there are differences of habit, and ...

— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... in the thorax between the lungs, its lower point, or a'pex, being tilted somewhat to the left; the centre and force-pump of ...

— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

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