from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. The condition of being gibbous.
- n. A rounded hump or protuberance.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. The state of being gibbous or gibbose; gibbousness.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The state of being gibbous or gibbose; roundness or protuberance of outline; convexity.
- n. A protuberance; a round or swelling prominence. Specifically
- n. In botany, a swelling or protuberance at one side of an organ, usually near the base, as of a calyx.
- n. In zoology, an irregular large protuberance, somewhat rounded, but not forming the segment of a sphere; a hump: as, the gibbosity of or on the back of a camel or zebu.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from its surroundings
Here is some further information from the creators of the project: The shape of site is transformed into the gibbosity.
And in those cases where the gibbosity is above the diaphragm, the ribs do not usually expand properly in width, but forward, and the chest becomes sharp-pointed and not broad, and they become affected with difficulty of breathing and hoarseness; for the cavities which inspire and expire the breath do not attain their proper capacity.
From this frame of body, such persons appear to have appear to have more prominent necks than persons in good health, and they generally have hard and unconcocted tubercles in the lungs, for the gibbosity and the distension are produced mostly by such tubercles, with which the neighboring nerves communicate.
The vertebrae of the spine when contracted into a hump behind from disease, for the most part cannot be remedied, more especially when the gibbosity is above the attachment of the diaphragm to the spine.
And when the gibbosity occurs in youth before the body has attained its full growth, in these cases the body does not usually grow along the spine, but the legs and the arms are fully developed, whilst the parts (about the back) are arrested in their development.
When the gibbosity seizes persons who have already attained their full growth, it usually occasions a crisis of the then existing disease, but in the course of time some of them attack, as in the case of younger persons, to a greater or less degree; but, not withstanding, for the most part, all these diseases are less malignant.
Mullins 'Planet swelled in gibbosity, bright and blue-green under the clouds.
The mountain of the Amorites took its beginning from Cadesh-barnea, the southern border, of the land of Israel, -- and, by a hardened gibbosity, thrust forward itself into Judea beyond Hebron, the name only being changed into the "Hill-country of Judea."
"I do hope you'll be better to-morrow," she said, and she commiserated with Anne on all she had missed -- the garden, the stars, the scent of flowers, the meteorites through whose summer shower the earth was now passing, the rising moon and its gibbosity.
But the word of Mr Costello was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch that seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, born out of wedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first into the world, which the dint of the surgeon's pliers in his skull lent indeed