Word.ws English Dictionary

Macewen's sign

Macewen's sign proper noun: a clinical finding in which percussion of the skull near the junction of the frontal, temporal, and parietal bones produces a cracked-pot sound, indicative of separated sutures.

Proper noun

Macewen's sign

  1. A clinical finding in which percussion of the skull near the junction of the frontal, temporal, and parietal bones produces a cracked-pot sound, indicative of separated sutures.
  2. A clinical finding, suggestive of alcoholic coma, in which the pupils are contracted but an external painful stimulation causes dilation followed by slow constriction.
    • […] pupils, dilated in alcohol poisoning and in many other poisons. MacEwen's sign is of great value: if a patient has lain undisturbed for half an hour the pupils will be found contracted; […]1957, Alfred Swaine Taylor, Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, volume 2, page 444

Origin of Macewen's sign

Discovered by surgeon and professor Sir William Macewen (1848–1924).

Questions about Macewen's sign

What does Macewen's sign mean?
Macewen's sign means a clinical finding in which percussion of the skull near the junction of the frontal, temporal, and parietal bones produces a cracked-pot sound, indicative of separated sutures.
What part of speech is Macewen's sign?
Macewen's sign is a proper noun.

Words near Macewen's sign in the dictionary

  1. macers
  2. maces
  3. MacEvitt
  4. MacEvitts
  5. MacEwen
  6. Macewen's sign
  7. MacEwens
  8. Macey
  9. macfallite
  10. Macfarlane
  11. MacFarlanes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Macewen's sign (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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