Sphincter

From late Latin sphincter, from Greek sphinkter, band, contractile muscle, from sphingein, to bind tight. Compare Sphinx, "the strangler".

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A sphincter is a ring-like muscle that normally maintains constriction of a natural body passage or orifice and that relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning.

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Some examples of sphincters include:

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• Anus
• Cardia, at the upper portion of the stomach
• Sphincter urethrae, or Urethral sphincter
• Pyloric sphincter, at the lower end of the stomach
• Sphincter pupillae, or Pupillary sphincter, belonging to the iris in the eye
• Sphincter of Oddi, or Glisson's sphincter, controlling secretions from the liver, pancreas and gall bladder into the duodenum.

Latin: Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The ...

Greek: The noun Greek refers to:...

Sphinx: A Sphinx is an iconic image of a recumbent lion with a human head, invented by the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, but a cultural import in archaic Greek mythology, where it received its name (Greek Σφι?ξ, "strangler"). The best known is the Great Sphinx of Giza....