tetanus

plural tetani · plural tetanuses

1. uncountableusuallymedicineA serious and often fatal disease caused by the infection of an open wound with the anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani, found in soil and the intestines and faeces of animals.

   Compared to 290 children with TQQ negative, CWDs were significantly less likely to receive antenatal care (P=0.003), to get a maternal tetanus shot during antenatal care (P=0.004) and to receive full vaccination (P=0.01).

   2012, Yoshito Kawakatsu, Satoshi Kaneko, Mohamed Karama, Sumihisa Honda, “Prevalence and risk factors of neurological impairment among children aged 6-9 years: from population based cross sectional study in western Kenya”, in BMC Pediatrics, volume 12, →DOI, page 4

   Synonyms: lockjaw

2. countableusuallymedicineA state of muscle tension caused by sustained contraction arising from a rapid series of nerve impulses which do not allow the muscle to relax.

   We first saturated LTP in one pathway by applying repetitive tetani that had no effect on the control pathway […]

   1998 January 16, Pierre-Marie Lledo et al., “Postsynaptic Membrane Fusion and Long-Term Potentiation”, in Science, volume 279, number 5349, →DOI, pages 399–403