hypertonicadj.
/hʌɪpəˈtɒnɪk/ 1. Medicine. Exhibiting or characterized by excessive tone or tension (in muscle or muscular tissue).
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hypertonic1855
1855 R. G. Mayne Expos. Lexicon Med. Sci. (1860) 484/1 Hypertonicus, of or belonging to hypertonia: hypertonic.
1886 Lancet 13 Mar. 486/2 For convenience I describe the group of symptoms under the term ‘hyper-tonic paresis’, a symptomatic nomenclature which commits to no theory.
1907 W. Russell Arterial Hypertonus i. 3 The degree of contraction may exceed the limits of normal variation, and when it does the term hypertonic contraction, or merely arterial contraction, will be used here.
1908 Practitioner Dec. 774 Hypertrophied muscle in a state of hypertonic contraction.
1933 W. R. Brain Dis. Nerv. Syst. i. 8 Immediately following a capsular haemorrhage the paralysed limbs are completely flaccid... After a variable interval..tone gradually returns to the affected muscles and they ultimately become hypertonic or ‘spastic’.
1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. (rev. ed.) X. 528/1 When the stretch reflex is absent, the muscle is hypotonic or flaccid; when stretch reflexes are exaggerated..the muscles are hypertonic or spastic.
2. Physiology. Of a solution: having a higher osmotic pressure than some particular solution (usually that in a cell, or a bodily fluid). Const. to.
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the world > life > the body > secretory organs > secretion > [adjective] > osmotic pressure
hyperosmotic1892
hypertonic1895
hypotonic1895
isosmotic1895
isotonic1895
hyposmotic1905
iso-osmotic1908
1895 Jrnl. Physiol. 18 107 None of the water is taken up from hypertonic or isotonic solutions.
1929 Encycl. Brit. IV. 21/2 The intravenous administration of hypertonic solutions.
1936 A. P. Mathews Princ. Biochem. xxxiv. 364 If the solution have an osmotic pressure greater than that of the blood, it is said to be hypertonic to the blood.
1951 L. E. H. Whitby & M. Hynes Med. Bacteriol. (ed. 5) vi. 73 The optimum salt concentration is usually near the range of isotonicity to body cells; markedly hypertonic saline diminishes the reaction.
1970 A. F. Brading in E. Bülbring et al. Smooth Muscle vi. 172 Tissues will swell in hypotonic solutions, and shrink in hypertonic ones.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1976; most recently modified version published online June 2018).
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adj.1855