Word.ws English Dictionary

opisthenar

opisthenar noun: the back of the hand.

opisthenar: the back of the hand
Image: Meena Kadri, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

opisthenar (plural opisthenars)

  1. (rare) The back of the hand.
    • Blood samples were obtained from the opisthenar vein for measurements of lactate.1998, Koichi Okita et al., “Skeletal Muscle Metabolism Limits Capacity in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure”, in Circulation, volume 98, number 18, pages 1886–1891
    • Her mother favored a multiyear project: obscenities carved in intricate and clever juxtapositions, descending every finger, curling in lettered whorls across the palm, fanning in offensive rays across the opisthenar, which is the name for the back of the hand, a word that Leilani knew because she...2001, Dean R. Koontz, One Door Away from Heaven, Random House, →ISBN, page 497

Examples of opisthenar in a sentence

  • The handstrap includes an opisthenar-surrounding strap portion (3) which attaches to a handgrip (1) by way of transmission straps (4, 5) extending under the palm and thumb.2002, Taisto Manninen et al., "Handgrip for a Skiing, Walking or Skating Pole and Handstrap Fastened to the Same" (U.S. patent...
  • Seventy seconds after iodine contrast medium […] was injected at 1.0 ml/sec (total 100 ml) from^([sic]) the opisthenar vein, the whole breast was examined […]2002, Hiroshi Nakahara et al., “Extension of Breast Cancer: Comparison of CT and MRI”, in Radiation Medicine, volume 20, number 1, page 17:

Forms of opisthenar

pluralopisthenars

Origin of opisthenar

From opistho- (“behind, back”) + thenar (“palm of the hand”). By surface analysis, opis- + thenar.

Questions about opisthenar

What does opisthenar mean?
Opisthenar means the back of the hand.
How do you use opisthenar in a sentence?
The handstrap includes an opisthenar-surrounding strap portion (3) which attaches to a handgrip (1) by way of transmission straps (4, 5) extending under the palm and thumb.
What part of speech is opisthenar?
Opisthenar is a noun.
What is the plural of opisthenar?
The plural of opisthenar is opisthenars.

Words near opisthenar in the dictionary

  1. opisometers
  2. opist-
  3. opisth-
  4. opisthaptor
  5. opisthaptors
  6. opisthenar
  7. opisthia
  8. opisthion
  9. opistho-
  10. opisthobranch
  11. opisthobranchiate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: opisthenar (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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Cite this entry: “opisthenar.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/opisthenar. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.