muscle
/ˈmʌs(ə)l
/- The powerful venom acts on the victim's voluntary muscles, paralysing the muscles required for body movement and breathing.
- Make sure you get sufficient protein to protect not only your bones, but your muscles and other body tissues.
- Each time the calf and thigh muscles contract when walking, veins deep inside the leg are squeezed.
Synonyms
- Her stomach tightens, strong muscles visible beneath her skin.
- He stroked her neck, feeling the strong muscles beneath the skin ripple at his touch.
- He watched the way she took up a pickaxe and swung it, saw the muscles rippling beneath her tanned skin.
Muscles are formed of bands, sheets, or columns of elongated cells (or fibres) containing interlocking parallel arrays of the proteins actin and myosin. Projections on the myosin molecules respond to chemical signals by forming and reforming chemical bonds to the actin, so that the filaments move past each other and interlock more deeply. This converts chemical energy into the mechanical force of contraction, and also generates heat.
- We've power of muscle and brain, and where else is that combination useful?
- A matter of a difference in opinion should not be settled with muscle rather than the brain.
- But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
Synonyms
- Louis was the sort of low-grade man child that shoestring celebrities often employ as muscle to keep up appearances and work as a butler.
- By this time both sides had brought some professional muscle to bear on proceedings.
- I really hope he cuts a deal and brings in the hired muscle.
- The truth is, governments and governments alone have the financial and political muscle that can deliver real change.
- Public officials must provide the political muscle and resources to implement these programs.
- They'd just pay their better players more, and use their financial muscle to build a dominant team.
Synonyms
- His strength allows him to muscle shots even when he doesn't put the bat's sweet spot on the ball.
- A third-generation Marine, he lugged the same heavy pack, muscled the same kind of machine gun into his foxhole at night and took the same risks as any of the bigger men.
- The six-liter, 325-horsepower turbo diesel engine can muscle you up loose inclines and keep you in the passing lane.
- We see it every day on our way to work, a street scene replicated city-wide: white-collar execs hailing taxis on every street corner, muscling others out of the way for the comfort of air-conditioned interiors.
- I was driving to work one morning recently when a gentleman in a big Sports Utility Vehicle barreled down on me from a side street and muscled his way into the line of morning traffic.
- And Labour MPs have not just muscled this off the agenda in the run-up to the General Election expected next summer only to see it reappear in the autumn.
Phrases
flex one's muscles
not move a muscle
Phrasal verbs
muscle in/into
muscle up
Derivatives
muscleless
- The boy was already sprawled inside, his pants twisted up, exposing skinny, muscleless calves.
- The Captain put his long muscleless arm around me, and we sat together on the wall.
- In addition, it was recognized that muscleless adult females had more eggs in their ovaries than muscled females.
Origin
Late Middle English: from French, from Latin musculus, diminutive of mus 'mouse' (some muscles being thought to be mouse-like in form).
The ancient Romans saw a resemblance between a flexing muscle in the upper arm and the movements of a mouse. Latin musculus, from mus ‘mouse’, meant ‘little mouse’ and also ‘muscle’. It entered English through French in the 14th century. The edible mollusc the mussel (Old English) is the same word, and the accepted spellings of both words remained variable into the 19th century.