tenaculum

plural tenacula · plural tenaculums

1. A medical instrument consisting of a sharp hook attached to a handle; used mainly for taking up arteries and the like.

   Additional tenaculums are placed laterally to maintain control Within the bounds of the broad ligaments and yet allow maximum feasible removal.

   2013, Mitchel S. Hoffman, William N. Spellacy, The Difficult Vaginal Hysterectomy: A Surgical Atlas, →ISBN, page 62

   1 more example

   It was a recognized procedure in those days (and is resorted to still), when all medical, electrical, and other remedial measures had failed to relieve a furious neuralgia, for the surgeon to cut down upon the nerve-trunk, free it from its surrounding attachments, and, slipping his tenaculum or finger under it, stretch the nerve with a considerable degree of force.

   1909, Woods Hutchinson, Preventable Diseases

2. biologyA hapteron or holdfast.