hunchback

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a dated and potentially offensive term for a person with a markedly hunched back or kyphosis

   The nineteenth-century novel calls the stooped character a hunchback, a label now considered offensive.

2. 2
   noun

   a pronounced outward curvature or hump of the upper back; now usually described as kyphosis

   The old medical text used hunchback for a spinal curvature now diagnosed more precisely as kyphosis.

A back-formation from hunchbacked, itself formed from hunch + back. Hunch developed a noun sense for a rounded projection or hump before the compound became a label for a person.

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