clavicle

• clavicula

Borrowed from Middle French clavicule, from Latin clāvicula (“a small key”), diminutive of clāvis (“a key”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈklæv.ɪk.əl/, /ˈklæv.ɪk.l̩/
• Rhymes: -ævɪkəl

• Audio (Southern England)

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clavicle (plural clavicles)

1. (anatomy) The collarbone; the prominent bone at the top of the chest between the shoulder and the neck connecting the shoulder and the breastbone.

   Synonym: collarbone

   • 2022 June 28, Cassidy Hutchinson, 0:47 from the start, in Secret Service officials: Agents willing to dispute Trump SUV incident under oath‎, CNN:

     Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel, and, when Mr. Ornato had recounted the story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.

   • 2022, Ling Ma, “Yeti Lovemaking”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN:

     And you worked a lot too. You were thin from biking around all day; your protruding clavicles collected rainwater.

2. (obsolete, conchology) The upper part of a spiral shell.
   • 1752, John Hill, “Voluta”, in An History of Animals. […], London: Printed for Thomas Osborne, […], →OCLC, page 137:

     The Voluta is a ſimple ſhell, having no hinge, formed of one piece, and of a figure approaching to conic, but short; the clavicle being uſually depreſſed, in all very ſhort: the mouth is long, perpendicular, and narrow: the animal inhabiting this ſhell is a limax.

• “clavicle”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “clavicle”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.