Anat. and Zool. [a. F. trochanter (Paré, 16th c.), a. Gr. τροχαντήρ (in sense 1), f. τρέχειν to run.]
1. A protuberance or process in the upper part of the thigh-bone, serving for the attachment of certain muscles; usually, as in man, two in number, the great trochanter (t. major) for the external rotator muscles, and the lesser trochanter (t. minor) for the ilio-psoas muscle.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 997. The great Trochanter … the lesser Trochanter. These two processes are ioyned together by a line which buncheth out behind.
1741. Monro, Anat. Bones (ed. 3), 279. The Muscles inserted into these two Processes being the principal Instruments of the rotatory Motion of the Thigh, have occasioned the Name of Trochanters to the Processes.
1881. Mivart, Cat, 282. Between the great trochanter and the tuberosity of the ischium.
2. Entom. The second joint of an insect’s leg, next to the coxa (COXA 2); sometimes consisting of two joints (cf. TROCHANTIN b).
1816. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xxii. (1818), II. 286. These legs … vary in larvæ of the different orders; but they seem in most to have joints answering to the hip (coxa); trochanter; thigh (femur); shank (tibia); foot (tarsus), of perfect insects.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. VI. i. 310. Each limb [of the Sarcoptus Scabiei] consists of a hip, trochanter, small trochanter, thigh, leg, and tarsus.
Hence Trochanterian (rare–0) [F. trochantérien], Trochanteric adjs., pertaining to a trochanter; trochanteric fossa = digital fossa (see DIGITAL A. 2).
1842. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M. (1851), 254. The trochanteric fossa of the femur.
1857. Dunglison, Med. Lex., Trochanterian.
1890. Humphry, Old Age, 16. Liability to fracture … especially remarkable in the trochanteric part and neck of the thigh-bone.
