Rhomboids, like triangles, may take various different shapes, but they always look like a lopsided diamond or rectangle. As both a noun and an adjective, rhomboid can be applied to anything with those shapes, such as certain muscles of the upper back when viewed from behind. Whenever you hear about rhomboid exercises, rhomboid strain, or rhomboid pain, it involves those muscles, which attach your shoulder blades to your spine and can be strained by carrying a heavy backpack, serving a tennis ball, or just slumping in your chair in front of a computer all day.
Examples of rhomboid in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
More specifically, upper-body pull moves often work the lats (your broadest back muscle), traps (upper back and neck muscles), rear delts (a shoulder muscle), and rhomboids (upper back muscles), Williams says.—Christa Sgobba, SELF, 25 Apr. 2024 These include your latissimus dorsi (lats, the broadest of your back muscles), rear deltoids (a shoulder muscle), rhomboids (upper back muscles), and biceps (upper arm muscles).—Jenny McCoy, SELF, 17 Jan. 2024 On the other hand, pulling exercises target the back of your body, like your lats, lower traps, and rhomboids, while your biceps help it along.—Amy Marturana Winderl, SELF, 19 Dec. 2023 At the same time, a new generation of tanks had replaced the slow, clumsy rhomboids and toy-like vehicles of World War I.—Popular Mechanics, 17 Aug. 2023 To avoid that, tighten both your lats and rhomboids.—Men's Health, 11 July 2023 There was her stained glass version, among other oblong wise men and faceless, rhomboid Baby Jesuses.—Aj Willingham, CNN, 3 Dec. 2022 To strengthen the rotator cuff, middle trapezius and rhomboid muscles HOW: Hold an exercise band with an underhand grip with your elbows bent to 90-degrees.—Jon-Erik Kawamoto, Outside Online, 6 Nov. 2019 Even their origin story has seemed uncertain since the 1997 discovery of a prehistoric Indonesian cave painting of what appears to be a floating rhomboid.—New York Times, 29 Sep. 2021
Adjective
Rowing with heavier loads elicits more muscle growth in your middle and lower traps, rhomboid major, rhomboid minor, upper traps, rear deltoids, and rotator cuff muscles.—Tony Gentilcore, Men's Health, 30 Nov. 2022 Rest is the initial plan for outfielder Max Kepler, who missed much of September because of a rhomboid strain — although Falvey said that Kepler will see a specialist.—Betsy Helfand, Twin Cities, 9 Oct. 2019 McIlroy said the injury is to a rhomboid muscle on the left side of his body.—Rick Bonnell, charlotteobserver, 13 Aug. 2017 McIlroy, 28, punctuated a quiet week with a 68, his first sub-70 round of the tournament, and then said a lingering rib injury — a spasming left rhomboid muscle, to be precise — could sideline him indefinitely.—Karen Crouse, New York Times, 13 Aug. 2017
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rhomboid.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Middle French rhomboïde, from Latin rhomboides, from Greek rhomboeidēs resembling a rhombus, from rhombos
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