tenesmus
/tɪˈnɛz.məs/noun
tenesmus is a noun meaning “A continual or recurrent but ineffectual inclination to evacuate the bowels, caused by disorder of the rectum or other illness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-E-N-E-S-M-U-S, and it appears about once in every 79 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of tenesmus is tenesmuses.
What does tenesmus mean?
noun
- 1
A continual or recurrent but ineffectual inclination to evacuate the bowels, caused by disorder of the rectum or other illness.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce tenesmus?
- /tɪˈnɛz.məs/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of tenesmus
- tenesmuses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is tenesmus?
Tenesmus appears about once in every 79 million words in written English, the 282,993rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Tenesmus in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense inclination to evacuate the bowels:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does tenesmus come from?
Borrowing from Medieval Latin tēnesmus, from Ancient Greek τεινεσμός (teinesmós, “vain endeavor to evacuate”), from τείνω (teínō, “to stretch, to pull tight”) + -εσμός (-esmós, nominal suffix).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).