Cruciate ligament

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Cruciate ligaments (from the Latin for "cross") are found in several parts of the body. These include:

• anterior cruciate ligament of the knee (ACL)
• posterior cruciate ligament of the knee (PCL)
• cruciate ligament of the dens of the atlas vertebra, also called "cruciform ligament of the atlas"

In quadrupeds, the equivalents of the ACL and PCL are called the Cranial cruciate ligament and the Caudal cruciate ligament, respectively.

[edit] Etymology

In Classical Latin the verb cruciare means "to torture". But by the time in the Late Latin period when Latin medical terminology was being established, this old meaning of cruciare seems to have fallen out of use in common speech, and the word was re-invented with the meaning "arrange in cross shape", as in each knee the two cruciate ligaments are arranged like a letter X.

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