Meanings
nounmanipulandum (plural manipulanda or manipulandums)
plural manipulanda · plural manipulandums
- sciencesSomething that is manipulated physically, especially when testing motor skills
The manipulandum was a vertical rigid metal rod, with a disc attached to the top, which was placed in front of the animal in the midsagittal plane and which the animal grasped with the hand pronated.
1999 March 12, Adam F. Carpenter et al., “Motor Cortical Encoding of Serial Order in a Context-Recall Task”, in Science, volume 283, number 5408, →DOI, pages 1752–1757
Origin
From manipulate + Latin -andum.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
manipulandum. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manipulandum
MLA
“manipulandum.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manipulandum. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “manipulandum,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/manipulandum.
Source: manipulandum on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.