Rigor Mortis
Defined in 2 dictionaries — Bouvier (1914), Black's (1910)
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
Cadaveric rigidity. The peculiar rigidity which takes place in the muscles of the body within five or six hours after death and which remains till putrefaction ensues. The muscles lose their translucency and elasticity, and there is found to have occurred in them a coagulation of their plasma or tissue juice. Both chemically and physically the process differs materially from the ordinary rigidity of contraction.
Black's Law Dictionary
Henry Campbell Black, M.A. · 1910
In medical jurisprudence. Cadaveric rigidity; a rigidity or stiffening of the muscular tissue and joints of the body, which sets in at a greater or less interval after death, but usually within a few hours, and which is one of the recognized tests of death.