Definition of "tubercle" [tu•ber•cle]

• A small rounded projecting part or outgrowth, such as a wartlike excrescence on the roots of some leguminous plants or a knoblike process in the skin or on a bone. (noun)
• Pathology A nodule or swelling, especially a mass of lymphocytes and epithelioid cells forming the characteristic lesion of tuberculosis. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Running obliquely downward and medialward from the tubercle is the intertrochanteric line (spiral line of the femur); it winds around the medial side of the body of the bone, below the lesser trochanter, and ends about 5 cm. below this eminence in the linea aspera."
• "A prominence, of variable size, occurs at the junction of the upper part of the neck with the greater trochanter, and is called the tubercle of the femur; it is the point of meeting of five muscles: the Glutæus minimus laterally, the Vastus lateralis below, and the tendon of the Obturator internus and two Gemelli above."
• "The volar surface is concave above, and elevated at its lower and lateral part into a rounded projection, the tubercle, which is directed forward and gives attachment to the transverse carpal ligament and sometimes origin to a few fibers of the Abductor pollicis brevis."