depressors

"Depressors" is the plural form of "depressor" — a word with a small but interesting set of meanings. It appears most often in medical and scientific contexts, but it also has a more general sense. Here are the most useful meanings.

1nounmedical tool

A depressor is a small instrument a doctor uses to press something down so they can see it better. The most familiar example is a tongue depressor — that flat wooden stick a doctor puts on your tongue and asks you to say 'Ahh!' so they can look at your throat.

medicine · Modern, widely used in medical settings

The doctor used a tongue depressor to check if my throat was red and swollen.

The nurse opened a new pack of wooden depressors before the examination.

Tongue depressors are one of the most common tools in a doctor's office.

2nounmuscle that pulls downward

In anatomy — the study of the body — a depressor is a muscle whose job is to pull a body part downward. For example, there are depressor muscles in your face that pull the corners of your mouth down.

anatomy / medicine · Modern, used in scientific and medical texts

The depressor anguli oris muscles are responsible for pulling the corners of the mouth downward.

Surgeons need to understand which depressors are involved when operating near the jaw.

The facial depressors work in opposition to the muscles that make you smile.

3nounsomething that lowers activity or function

More broadly, a depressor is anything — a substance, a nerve, or a factor — that slows down or reduces the activity of something in the body. For example, certain drugs are called depressors because they slow down the nervous system.

medicine / pharmacology · Modern, used in scientific contexts

Alcohol is a well-known depressor of the central nervous system.

The researchers studied several chemical depressors and their effects on heart rate.

Some medications act as depressors, reducing blood pressure in patients.