Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A crackling noise; crepitation. Specifically
  • noun The sound heard or grating sensation felt when the fractured ends of a broken bone are rubbed against each other.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The noise produced by a sudden discharge of wind from the bowels.
  • noun Same as crepitation, 2.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine Grating, crackling or popping sounds and sensations experienced under the skin and joints.
  • noun crepitation

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin crepitus.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "It seemed to me an ordinary distal radius-ulna transverse fracture with some lateral displacement effectively reduced: the kind of break you would expect from a fall... When did it take place?"

    "Three weeks ago; and it is not yet knit, nor beginning to knit. The ends are closely approximated—there is a crepitus—but there is no union."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation, 225

    March 7, 2008

  • The grating, crackling or popping sounds and sensations experienced under the skin and joints when two rough surfaces in the human body come into contact; sound and senseation produced in soft tissues when gas is introduced into an area where it normally isn't present; the crackling wheezing sounds produced by lung conditions; the noise produced by a sudden discharge of wind from the bowels.

    April 3, 2008

  • See also crepitation.

    October 16, 2008

  • JM likes to hear snap, crepitus, pop - but wonders should it be snap, crepitate, pop?

    March 10, 2010