English

Alternative forms

• anchylosis

Noun

ankylosis ‎(plural ankyloses)

1. (anatomy) The growing together of bones to form a single unit.
2. (medicine) The stiffening of a joint as the result of such abnormal fusion.
3. (figuratively) An onset of stiffness or inflexibility.
   • 1914, Brand Whitlock, Forty Years of It, introduction:

     Yet in using the word democracy, one must plead for a distinction, or, better, a reversion, indicated by the curious anchylosis that, at a certain point in their maturity, usually sets in upon words newly put in use to express some august and large spiritual reality.

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