I refer to the Word-A-Day for February 9th, 2010: prevaricate, and the comment under etymology that (latin) varus meant (english) knock-knee. Medical folks know that (latin) valgus means knock-knee, and (latin) varus means bow-leg. Knock-knee refers to legs bent in, while bow-leg refers to legs curving out.

Regards!
M.D.

Today i used this action in my daily routine, just to avert a fight i made things ambiguous, how silly or surprising is it to do something and find a word to be mentioned in your inbox for it. Prevaricate happens mostly in our life..... mostly to be on the safer side.....

Quite confusing. Knock-knee I think we would call X-legs and bow-leg I think O-legs, in non medical terms. I still try to figure out from which angle this problem should be looked at. With X the upper part of the legs are straight, but from the knee down they do not exactly curve out, but just go askew, no?
With bow-legs, do they curve out or rather curve in?
() = bow-legs? /\ = Knock-knee?

think of riding a horse -- cowboys get bowlegged () from all that horse-riding they do!
-cowboy joe

Sure, but would you call this () curving in or curving out?

out.


"I love to go swimming with bow-legged women,
And swim between their legs,
Swim between their legs..."

Arbitrary. )(

I have seen reference to bowlegged coming from "bull" legged, which to me would imply a roundness - O (either the shape of the bull [cross-section] or the result of riding one.

arbitrary it may be, but bowlegged refers to the legs bowing out at the knee.

Interesting word. I've always described the action as being something akin to lying or evasiveness or concealing but now I know the term. Prevaricate. Would you be being prevaricacious or prevaricatory whilst actioning this word?

actually, W3 suggests prevaricatory and prevaricative as adjectival forms.

You're certainly free to interpret bow-legged or even curving out, any way you like. The standard understanding, at least in the US, is that bow-legged is ().

My Collins Gem Latin Dictionary agrees with Anu. Valgus, 'bow-legged'. Varus, 'knocked-kneed'. AHD4 seems to more agree with you, giving, in its etymology of prevaricate, varicare, 'to straddle' and for [i]varus[/i it only says 'bent'.

??

varicare, 'to straddle'; you know, like in riding a horse. ()

Even though straddle seems close to saddle etymologically it has nothing to do with it.

Medical folks know that (latin) valgus means knock-knee, and (latin) varus means bow-leg.

In Latin, valgus means 'bow-legged' (link) and varus means 'knock-kneed' (link). The online medical dictionaries I consulted preserve the original Latin meanings, but at least one said that the two words meanings were often reversed.

>often reversed.

established by error in some old source and then incessantly inculcated, I suppose?
-joe (source errors 'Я us) friday

I don't know about Latin medicine but in Canadian medical terminology valgus is generally considered knock-kneed. Unless it is halux.

Tried to get wise about halux. But they had only this:
hal·lux (hlks) KEY

NOUN:
pl. hal·lu·ces (hly-sz, hl-) KEY
The innermost or first digit on the hind foot of certain mammals. The human hallux is commonly called the big toe.
A homologous digit of a bird, reptile, or amphibian. In birds, it is often directed backward.

Take the discussion down a joint or three:

Hallux valgus is commonly known as a bunion. The two affected big-toe joints would bang into each other if you walked without shoes.

Now move the image up to your knees. That's knock-kneed, for the analogous reason. The officiousofficial term is genu valgus. That's "genu" as genuflect (= "knee bend").

The bow-legged, concave-in, knee is genu varus.

There is a twisted consistency in that medical terminology.

Yes, that's really clear to see. ( the X-ray )That is what we in every day language call X-legs.;-) I didn't know that toes can be so too.

Bandy legged - is also bow legged from the hip I always thought.

Yeah, where'd that word bandy come from, anyway?

From the OED:

bandy (v.)Bandy was a 17c. Irish game, precursor of field hockey, played with curved a stick (also called a bandy), hence bandy-legged (1680s).