tibIa

[Lat.=a pipe, the shin-bone.] 1. Anat .: The shin-bone, with the exception of the femur, the longest bone in the skeleton. It is the anterior and inner of the two bones of the leg, and alone communicates the weight of the trunk to the foot. It is slightly twisted, and articulates with the femur, fibula, and astragalus. Its superior extremity is thick and expanded, with two condylar surfaces supporting the femur, and an external and an internal tuberosity; the shaft is three-sided, the inner surface convex and subcutaneous; the inferior is smaller than the superior extremity, and forms a thick proce called the internal malleolus. (Quain.) The tibia corresponds with the radius of the arm. 2. Entom.: The fourth joint of the leg. Flute-Player with Tibia. 3. Music : A kind of pipe, a common musical instrument among the Greeks and Romans. It had holes at proper intervals, and was furnished with a mouthpiece, the performer in blowing putting the end of it to his mouth. Two such pipes were often blown simultaneously by the same performer. "Cro -flutes were known to the Greeks by the name plagiaulos, and to the Romans as tibia obliqua ; both of these terms leave no doubt as to their nature. By the Romans the cro -flute was sometimes called also tibia vasca , the meaning of which is very doubtful. Although the tibicæ represented flutes of all kinds, yet if a real tibia or shin-bone be made into a flute, it is held cro ways, and the player blows into a hole in the side." Stainer & Barrett: Dict. Musical Terms.