Chorda 2123 (from to roll up like a cord). Properly a musical chord, metaphorically a tendon. Poets often express by it the intestines. Paracelsus, in his work De Origine et Curatione Morbi Gallici, calls the penis by this name. A painful tension of the penis in the lues venerea is still called chorde.

Chorda magna. See Tendo achillis.

Chorda tympani. The fifth pair of nerves from the brain divides into three principal branches, one of which is called the inferior maxillary. (See Trigemini nervi). A branch of the inferior maxillary nerve forms the lingual, which, soon after it leaves its origin, is accompanied by a small distinct nerve, which runs upward and backward towards the articulation of the lower jaw, in company with the lateral muscle of the malleus, and passes through the tympanum between the handle of the malleus and the long neck of the incus, by the name of the chorda tympani. It afterwards perforates the back side of the tympanum, and unites with the portio dura of the auditory nerve.