Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Either of two large, flat, triangular bones forming the back part of the shoulder.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In anatomy, the shoulder-blade, or blade-bone, or omoplate.
  • noun In Crinoidea, one of the plates in the cup which give rise to the arms.
  • noun In entomology: One of the parapsides or plicæ scapulares on the side of the mesothorax.
  • noun A pleura, including the episternum and epimeron, the latter being distinguished by Burmeister as the posterior wing of the scapula. Also scapularium. See parapsis.
  • noun A shoulder-tippet, or shoulder-cover. See patagium .
  • noun A trochanter of the fore leg.

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

  • noun (Anat.) The principal bone of the shoulder girdle in mammals; the shoulder blade.
  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the plates from which the arms of a crinoid arise.

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

  • noun anatomy Either of the two large, flat, bones forming the back of the shoulder.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun either of two flat triangular bones one on each side of the shoulder in human beings

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin, shoulder, from Latin scapulae, the shoulder blades.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin scapula ("shoulder").

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