noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A spasmodic, nervous system disease brought on by the tetanus bacteria, causing muscles to seize up and may cause death by suffocation. uncountable, usually
2. 2
   an acute and serious infection of the central nervous system caused by bacterial infection of open wounds; spasms of the jaw and laryngeal muscles may occur during the late stages wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

tetanustetanustrismusabdominal epilepsyaccessacquired epilepsy

Etymology

From lock + jaw.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.