fetter bone
- noun
- Specialized
- The veterinarian examined the horse’s fetter bone for signs of injury.
Examples
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Fractures in the fetter bone can cause lameness in racehorses.
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Proper care of the hoof helps protect the fetter bone from stress and damage.
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The fetter bone is crucial for its overall structure.
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Did you notice any swelling around the fetter bone?
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Fractures in the fetter bone can cause lameness in racehorses.
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Proper care of the hoof helps protect the fetter bone from stress and damage.
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The veterinarian examined the horse's fetter bone for signs of injury.
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'fetter' as a shackle and 'bone' as skeletal tissue would not be able to infer a specific anatomical bone in a horse from those meanings. 'Fetter bone' is a specialised, historically derived term (related to fetlock/pastern anatomy) rather than a transparent compound, so its sense is unpredictable from the constituents.
Etymology
Fetter bone comes from the old word fetter, a metal 'shackle' put around a horse's lower leg, and bone for the actual bone. So the name points to the bone where a fetter would sit and now means the long bone between the fetlock and the hoof.