the.com/ribcage
your skeleton's armored vault, built to flex with every breath while guarding the soft stuff
means The bony enclosure formed by the ribs, sternum, and spine that surrounds and protects the heart, lungs, and other organs of the chest.
from A plain compound of two old English words bolted together: "rib," from Old English "ribb," cousin to German "Rippe" and tracing back to a Proto-Germanic root, and "cage," which took the long road through Old French "cage" from Latin "cavea," a hollow place or enclosure (the same root that gives us "cave"). So the word literally pictures the ribs as a hollow cage — a relatively modern pairing, anatomical English deciding the metaphor was too good to pass up.
- rib count
- usually 24, but some people grow extra ones
- floating ribs
- bottom pair attaches to nothing in front
- breath machine
- expands and contracts roughly 20,000 times daily
- heart shield
- takes the hit so your heart doesn't
- self-repair
- cracked ribs heal with no cast required