divaricator

Noun

divaricator (plural divaricators)

1. One of the muscles that open the shell of a brachiopod; a cardinal muscle.
   • The relative position of the adductor and divaricator impressions varies somewhat in different species of the genus, as we have already described; thus, in P. giganteus, P. longispinus, &c., the divaricators are situated immediately under and outside of the adductor, while in P. pustulosus, P....1862, Thomas Davidson, William Herbert Dalton, A Monograph of the British Fossil Brachiopoda, page 277
   • The interior of the ventral valve differs from the dorsal one by having its divaricator scars much narrower, and its occlusor impressions closer at the anterior extremity, and leaving only a very small space between them for the two little scars which Mr. Hancock thinks might belong to the anterior...1866, Palaeontographical Society - Volume 19, page 79
2. A surgical device for spreading the surroundings and holding open the area in which one is operating.
   • An operation case containing: 1. A tongue forceps. 2. Heister's gag. 3. Author's ringed gag. 4. Three Krishaber's tracheotomoy tubes for children and adults. 5. One divaricator of the commissure. 6. One divaricator of the molars. […]1917, Eugène-Louis Doyen, Surgical Therapeutics and Operative Technique - Volume 1, page 228
   • In 1987, Griffith12 proposed an endonasal sphenoidotomy through a sphenoethmoidal recess. Here it is also necessary to use a divaricator.2010, Edward R. Laws, Giuseppe Lanzino, Transsphenoidal Surgery, page 153