Underarm

Information about Underarm

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Underarm of a male human
Latinaxilla
subject #149 585
Arteryaxillary artery
Veinaxillary vein
Nerveaxillary nerve, medial cord, posterior cord, lateral cord
Lymphaxillary lymph nodes
MeSH Axilla
Dorlands/Elsevier a_76/12171908
The underarm (or armpit, axilla, or oxter) is the area on the human body directly under the joint where the arm connects to the shoulder.

Boundaries

Anatomically:

Underarm hair

Main article: Underarm hair
Enlarge picture
Underarm of a female human
Underarm hair usually grows in the underarms of both males and females, beginning in adolescence, though it is common in some societies for women to remove it for aesthetic reasons, while men tend to keep it. Recently, however, many men in the U.S. and Europe have begun to remove underarm hair due to popularization by hairless male models and athletes and thinking it is embarrassing if they show it when wearing a sleeveless shirt.

Body odor

Body odor develops in the underarms due in part to the waste products of microorganisms that feed on sebum, the fatty secretions produced by apocrine glands. The native microorganisms are regarded as an ecoorgan.

A wide variety of deodorant and antiperspirant products are sold for the purpose of mitigating this odour.

Cultural significance

The underarms are among the locations in the human body which are most vulnerable to tickling.

The sexual attraction to the underarms is called axillism or maschalophilous.

Terminology

The term oxter, pronounced 'ock-ster' is most often used in Scotland, northern England, and Ireland. Northern Ireland generally replaces all other names of underarm for oxter.

The term "underarm" only refers to the outer surface of the axilla.[1] However, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in casual contexts.

Colloquially, armpit refers to an object or place which is smelly, greasy or otherwise undesirable.

See also

Additional images


Superficial muscles of the chest and front of the arm.

Deep muscles of the chest and front of the arm, with the boundaries of the axilla.

Axillary artery and its branches - anterior view of right upper limb and thorax.

The veins of the right axilla, viewed from in front.

The right brachial plexus (infraclavicular portion) in the axillary fossa; viewed from below and in front.

The left side of the thorax.


References

External links

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General anatomy of upper limbs
Arm
Forearm
Hand
Latin}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Arteries are muscular blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart.[1] All arteries, with the exception of the pulmonary and umbilical arteries, carry oxygenated blood.

The circulatory system is extremely important for sustaining life.
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In human anatomy, the axillary artery is a large blood vessel that conveys oxygenated blood to the lateral aspect of the thorax, the axilla (armpit) and the upper limb. Its origin is at the lateral margin of the first rib, before which it is called the subclavian artery.
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vein is a blood vessel that carries blood toward the heart. The majority of veins in the body carry low-oxygen blood from the tissues back to the heart; the exceptions being the pulmonary and umbilical veins which both carry oxygenated blood.
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In human anatomy, the axillary vein is a large blood vessel that conveys blood from the lateral aspect of the thorax, axilla (armpit) and upper limb toward the heart. There is one axillary vein on each side of the body.
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A nerve is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of axons (the long, slender projection of a neuron). Neurons are sometimes called nerve cells, though this term is technically imprecise since many neurons do not form nerves, and nerves also include the glial cells that
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The axillary nerve is a nerve of the human body, that comes off the posterior cord of the brachial plexus at the level of the axilla (armpit) and carries nerve fibers from C5 and C6.
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The Medial cord is a division of the brachial plexus.

The medial cord gives rise to the following nerves:
  • The median pectoral nerve, C8 and T1, to the pectoralis muscle
  • The medial brachial cutaneous nerve, T1

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The posterior cord is a division of the brachial plexus. It consists of contributions from all of the roots of the brachial plexus.[1]

The posterior cord gives rise to the following nerves:[2]

Name Roots Supplies
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The Lateral cord is a division of the brachial plexus.

The lateral cord gives rise to the following nerves:
  • The lateral pectoral nerve, C5, C6 and C7 to the pectoralis major muscle
  • The musculocutaneous nerve which innervates the biceps muscle

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The lymphatic system is a complex network of lymphoid organs, lymph nodes, lymph ducts, lymphatic tissues, lymph capillaries and lymph vessels that produce and transport lymph fluid from tissues to the circulatory system.
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The Axillary lymph nodes are of large size, vary from twenty to thirty in number, and may be arranged in the following groups:
  • brachial lymph nodes (or "lateral")
  • pectoral axillary lymph nodes (or "anterior")
  • subscapular axillary lymph nodes (or "posterior")

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Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a huge controlled vocabulary (or metadata system) for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences. Created and updated by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), it is used by the MEDLINE/PubMed
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Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of medical and scientific literature, forms part of the Reed Elsevier group. Based in Amsterdam, the company has substantial operations in the UK, USA and elsewhere.
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An arm is an upper limb of the body.

Arm (or arms) may also refer to:
  • Armaments, weapons; as in Small arms, Right to bear arms
  • Eta Capricorni, a star, traditional name "Arm"

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In human anatomy, the shoulder comprises the part of the body where the arm attaches to the torso. It is made up of three bones: the clavicle (collarbone), the scapula (shoulder blade), and the humerus (upper arm bone) as well as associated muscles, ligaments and tendons.
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The Pectoralis major is a thick, fan-shaped muscle, situated at the upper front (anterior) of the chest wall. It makes up the bulk of the chest muscles in the male and lies under the breast in the female.
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The Pectoralis minor is a thin, triangular muscle, situated at the upper part of the chest, beneath the Pectoralis major.

Origin and insertion

It arises from the upper margins and outer surfaces of the third, fourth, and fifth ribs, near their cartilage and from the
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The Subclavius is a small triangular muscle, placed between the clavicle and the first rib. Along with the pectoralis major and pectoralis minor muscles, the subclavius muscle makes up the anterior wall of the axilla.
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The Subscapularis is a large triangular muscle which fills the subscapular fossa.

Origin and insertion

It arises from its medial two-thirds and from the lower two-thirds of the groove on the axillary border(subscapular fossa) of the scapula.
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Teres major is a muscle of the upper limb and one of six scapulohumeral muscles. It is a thick but somewhat flattened muscle.

Origin and insertion

It arises from the oval area on the dorsal surface of the inferior angle of the scapula, and from the fibrous septa
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The latissimus dorsi (plural: latissimi dorsi) is the large, flat, dorso-lateral muscle on the trunk, posterior to the arm, and partly covered by the spinotrapezius on its median dorsal region.
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RIB can mean:
  • Rigid-hulled inflatable boat
  • Romanian International Bank
  • Routing Information Base
This article is about the bones called ribs. For other meanings, see rib (disambiguation).

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The serratus anterior is a muscle that originates on the surface of the upper eight ribs at the side of the chest and inserts along the entire anterior length of the medial border of the scapula.
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The Coracobrachialis is the smallest of the three muscles that attach to the coracoid process of the scapula. (The other two muscles are pectoralis minor and biceps brachii.) It is situated at the upper and medial part of the arm.
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For other uses, see biceps.


In human anatomy, the biceps brachii is a muscle located on the upper arm. The biceps has several functions, the most important simply being to flex the elbow and to rotate the forearm.
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The tubercles of the humerus are separated from each other by a deep groove, the intertubercular groove (bicipital groove, sulcus intertubercular), which lodges the long tendon of the Biceps brachii and transmits a branch of the anterior humeral circumflex artery to
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The first rib is the most curved and usually the shortest of all the ribs; it is broad and flat, its surfaces looking upward and downward, and its borders inward and outward.
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scapula, or shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus (arm bone) with the clavicle (collar bone).

The scapula forms the posterior part of the shoulder girdle. In humans, it is a flat bone, roughly triangular in shape.
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Collarbone and collar bone redirect here. The eye abnormality is correctly spelled coloboma.
This article uses some professional terms to describe relative positions and directions.

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