[ad. L. ligāment-um, f. ligāre to bind.]
† 1. Anything used in binding or tying; a band, tie; Surg. a bandage, ligature. Obs. in lit. sense.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 344/1. Cut of linnen ligamentes the breadth of three fingers, grease them in this salve…. Tye then these ligamentes theron.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 66. The Prince of Aurange … could finde no meanes to stanch the Bloud, either by Medicine or Ligament.
1671. Grew, Anat. Plants, I. iii. App. § 4 (1682), 27. The Gardener, with his Ligaments of Leather, secures the main Branches.
1735. J. Price, Stone-Br. Thames, 7. All the Work well cemented and join’d together with proper Ligaments.
1753. Hanway, Trav. (1762), I. III. l. 228. Their drawers … are more convenient than breeches in a hot country, being without any tight ligaments.
b. fig. Chiefly, a tie, bond of union.
1426. Lydg., De Guil. Pilgr., 22595. My boondes and my lygamentys Ben dyuerse comaundementys, To holden in subieccyoun ffolkes off relygyoun.
1596. Bell, Surv. Popery, III. v. 280. The bishoppe of Rome … might have released or pardoned … such ligaments, mults, or canonicall corrections as he had inioyned to publike offenders.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., I. § 38. I have not those strait ligaments, or narrow obligations to the World, as to dote on life.
1762. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, VI. x. He looked up … in my uncle Toby’s face; then cast a look upon his boy;—and that ligament, fine as it was,—was never broken.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, I. (1892), 70. The law of nations, the great ligament of mankind.
1841. Trench, Parables, xvii. (1877), 326. The Sacraments have been often called the ligaments for the wounds of the soul.
1850. Hawthorne, Scarlet L., iv. (1852), 69. I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate;… of right or wrong.
2. Anat. One of the numerous short bands of tough, flexible, fibrous tissue that binds the bones of the body together. By extension applied to any membranous fold that supports an organ and keeps it in position.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 20. Ne leeue we nouȝt þat ech brood ligament is a skyn, & ech round ligament to be a senewe.
1599. Massinger, etc., Old Law, I. i. I might have gently lost it in my cradle, Before my nerves and ligaments grew strong.
1741. Monro, Anat. Bones (ed. 3), 213. The Ligament of the Thigh-bone, which is commonly … called the round one.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., viii. 120. A … flexible ligament, inserted, by one end into the head of the ball, by the other into the bottom of the cup [of a ball and socket joint]; which ligament keeps the two parts of the joint … in their place.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xxi. The ligament which unites the Siamese twins.
1858. Lewes, Sea-side Studies, 275. To Goethe, bones and ligaments were not less beautiful and full of interest than flowers and streams.
b. A similar part in lower organisms.
1797. Encycl. Brit., XIII. 537. A ligament placed at the summit of the [oyster] shell serves as an arm to its operations.
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), I. 42. They [insects] are cut, as it were, into two parts. These parts are in general connected by a slender ligament or hollow thread.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., IV. 185. In those with a sessile one [sc. abdomen] the base is attached to the metaphragm by strong ligaments.
c. spec. in Conch. The elastic substance that holds together the valves of a bivalve shell.
1816. T. Brown, Elem. Conchol., 155.
1837. Penny Cycl., VII. 433/1. To this hinge is superadded a ligament.
1851. Richardson, Geol., viii. (1855), 242.
1875. Buckland, Log-bk., 123. The ligament which holds the two shells together.
3. Comb., as ligament-wise adv.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 389. These … are knit to the proper membrane of euery gristle by the interposition as it were of a Periostion Ligament-wise.
Hence † Ligament v. rare, to bind together.
1658–9. Burton’s Diary (1828), III. 210. There was great wisdom … in framing that oath; to ligament the single person and people together.
