Definitions

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

  • adjective Of, relating to, or situated in or near the thorax.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to the thorax or chest: as, thoracic walls, contents, organs, or structures.
  • Having a thorax (of this or that kind); belonging to the Thoracica: as, the thoracic cirripeds.
  • Having the ventral fins thoracic in position; belonging to the Thoracici: as, a thoracic fish.
  • Posterior thoracic, a branch from the upper two or three nerves of the brachial plexus, passing on the side of the chest to be distributed to the serratus magnus. Also called long thoracic, and external respiratory nerve of Bell.
  • Especially, one of the several parts into which the surface of the human thorax is divided or mapped out by certain imaginary lines, which to some extent denote the situation of the contained viscera, and thus serve for medical and surgical purposes. These regions, unlike some of the corresponding abdominal regions, are all in pairs (right and left), in one nomenclature known as the humeral, subclavian, mammary, axillary, scapular, interscapular, and subscapular.
  • noun A thoracic structure; especially, a thoracic artery or nerve, or a rib-bearing dorsal vertebra.
  • noun A thoracic fish.

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

  • adjective (Anat.) Of or pertaining to the thorax, or chest.
  • adjective (Anat.) the great trunk of the lymphatic vessels, situated on the ventral side of the vertebral column in the thorax and abdomen. See Illust. of Lacteal.
  • noun (Zoöl.) One of a group of fishes having the ventral fins placed beneath the thorax or beneath the pectorial fins.

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

  • adjective anatomy Of the thorax.
  • noun zoology One of a group of fishes having the ventral fins placed beneath the thorax or beneath the pectoral fins.

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

  • adjective of or relating to the chest or thorax

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek θωρακικός (thorakikos, "suffering in the chest, of the thorax"), from θώραξ ("thorax").

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