Saturday night palsy
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Introduced mistakenly as a simplification of saturnine palsy, a complication of lead poisoning which has a similar presentation.[1]
Folk etymology associates it with carousing and intoxication on Saturday nights, which causes the individual to fall asleep in unnatural positions, such as on a chair or bed with one arm hanging over the edge.
Noun
[edit]Saturday night palsy (uncountable)
- (medicine, informal) Paralysis due to radial nerve compression in the arm, resulting from direct pressure against a firm object.
Hyponyms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]radial nerve palsy
References
[edit]- ^ Spinner RJ, Poliakoff MB, Tiel RL (2002) “The origin of "Saturday night palsy"?”, in Neurosurgery, volume 51, number 3, pages 737–741