tetanus

Noun

tetanus (usually uncountable, plural tetani or tetanuses)

1. (usually) A serious and often fatal disease caused by the infection of an open wound with the anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani, found in soil and the intestines and faeces of animals.
   • Compared to 290 children with TQQ negative, CWDs were significantly less likely to receive antenatal care (P=0.003), to get a maternal tetanus shot during antenatal care (P=0.004) and to receive full vaccination (P=0.01).2012, Yoshito Kawakatsu, Satoshi Kaneko, Mohamed Karama, Sumihisa Honda, “Prevalence and risk factors of neurological impairment among children aged 6-9 years: from population based cross sectional...

   Synonyms:

   lockjaw

2. (countable, usually) A state of muscle tension caused by sustained contraction arising from a rapid series of nerve impulses which do not allow the muscle to relax.
   • We first saturated LTP in one pathway by applying repetitive tetani that had no effect on the control pathway […]1998 January 16, Pierre-Marie Lledo et al., “Postsynaptic Membrane Fusion and Long-Term Potentiation”, in Science, volume 279, number 5349, →DOI, pages 399–403