from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Resembling a tooth.
- adj. Of or relating to the odontoid process: the odontoid ligaments.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Resembling a tooth, especially in shape
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Having the form of a tooth; toothlike.
- adj. Of or pertaining to the odontoid bone or to the odontoid process.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Tooth-like; resembling a tooth.
- n. The odontoid process of the axis or second cervical vertebra.
The odontoid process of the axis vertebra is the centrum of the atlas (p. 120).
Thus, when we turn the head to the right or left, the skull and the atlas move together, both rotating on the odontoid process of the axis.
Put the right forefinger of the other hand up through the front part to represent the odontoid process of the axis, and place some absorbent cotton through the other part to represent the spinal cord.
The cervical curve, convex forward, begins at the apex of the odontoid process, and ends at the middle of the second thoracic vertebra; it is the least marked of all the curves.
Symington found that in infants between six and twelve months of age the tip of the epiglottis was a little above the level of the fibrocartilage between the odontoid process and body of the axis, and that between infancy and adult life the larynx descends for a distance equal to two vertebral bodies and two intervertebral fibrocartilages.
In the triangular interval between these ligaments is another fibrous cord, the apical odontoid ligament (Fig. 308), which extends from the tip of the odontoid process to the anterior margin of the foramen magnum, being intimately blended with the deep portion of the anterior atlantoöccipital membrane and superior crus of the transverse ligament of the atlas.
It is a broad, strong bands which covers the odontoid process and its ligaments, and appears to be a prolongation upward of the posterior longitudinal ligament of the vertebral column.
The Alar Ligaments (ligamenta alaria; odontoid ligaments) (Fig. 307).
The alar ligaments are strong, rounded cords, which arise one on either side of the upper part of the odontoid process, and, passing obliquely upward and lateralward, are inserted into the rough depressions on the medial sides of the condyles of the occipital bone.
The joints frequently communicate with that between the posterior surface of the odontoid process and the transverse ligament of the atlas.