Pectoral

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈpɛk.tə.ɹəl/

Definitions

1. Related to the chest region as well as describing a side fin or limb found in aquatic animals that corresponds to a front limb in terrestrial creatures
2. Pertaining to the anatomical section of the chest or breast while also denoting a fin or limb situated laterally on fish and similar organisms
3. Connected to the front upper body region that houses the heart and lungs ; a paired appendage on fish used for steering and balance, analogous to front limbs in land animals

Etymology: "Pectoral" comes from Latin "pectorālis," meaning "of the breast," built from "pectus," "breast" or "chest." The Latin adjective was a straightforward descriptive term for anything relating to the chest, and English inherited that sense directly from it, with the adjective later attaching to the chest muscles and to the armour or ornaments worn over the breast. The aquatic sense is the more striking extension. A fish's pectoral fins sit just behind the head, roughly where a land animal's forelimbs attach to the chest, so anatomists applied the same chest-based word to these paired fins, and later to the limbs of other animals that correspond to forelimbs. The term thus carries a bodily location from the chest of a mammal into the side of a fish, where no breast exists at all.

Synonyms: chest, thoracic