the.com/ligament
the unsung rope holding your skeleton together while tendons hog the credit.
means A tough band of fibrous connective tissue that links bone to bone and keeps your joints from coming apart.
from Straight from Latin ligamentum, 'a band or tie,' from ligare, 'to bind' — the same knot-tying root that gives us 'ligature,' 'oblige,' and 'ally.' Aptly, the word for the body's binding straps literally means 'binding thing.'
- job
- connects bone to bone, not muscle
- blood supply
- so poor that tears heal painfully slow
- the popping ACL
- often snaps with an audible crack
- hidden ones
- organs hang from ligaments too, not just joints
- name origin
- Latin ligare, meaning to bind
for instance
anterior cruciate ligament — knee injury affecting ~200,000 americans annually, common in sports
ulnar collateral ligament — tommy john surgery repairs this in baseball pitchers, performed thousands of times yearly
suspensory ligament of lens — holds the eye's lens in place, failure causes ectopia lentis in marfan syndrome