dowager's hump

1. 1.

   abnormal spinal curvature that results when osteoporosis causes the spine to collapse; seen most often in elderly women

   Broaderspinal curvatureosteoporosis

Questions about dowager's hump

What does dowager's hump mean?

dowager's hump means "abnormal spinal curvature that results when osteoporosis causes the spine to collapse; seen most often in elderly women".

Is dowager's hump a common word?

dowager's hump is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.