skull
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: skŭl
ipa: /ˈskʌl/
homophone: scull
rhymes: -ʌl
Forms: form: skulls
form: scull
Etymology: From Middle English sculle, scolle (also schulle, scholle), probably from a dialectal form of Old Norse skalli (“bald head, skull”), itself probably related to Old English sċealu (“husk”). Compare Scots scull, Danish skal (“skull”) and skalle (“bald head, skull”), Norwegian skalle, Swedish skalle and especially dialectal Swedish skulle.
Alternatively, perhaps from Old Norse skoltr, skolptr (“muzzle, snout”), akin to Icelandic skoltur (“jaw”), dialectal Swedish skult, skulle (“dome, crown of the head, skull”), Middle Dutch scolle, scholle, Middle Low German scholle, schulle (“clod, sod”), and Scots skult, skolt. Compare also Old High German sciula, skiula (“skull”).
Senses: examples: text: He was about to roar when, lying among the black sticks and straw under the cliff, he saw a whole skull—perhaps a cow's skull, a skull, perhaps, with the teeth in it. Sobbing, but absent-mindedly, he ran farther and farther away until he held the skull in his arms.
ref: 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:
topics: anatomy
medicine
sciences
glosses: The main bones of the head considered as a unit; including the cranium, facial bones, and mandible.
examples: text: Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
⁠Thou madest Life in man and brute;
⁠Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Prologue”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
glosses: These bones as a symbol for death; death's-head.
examples: text: My thoughts are flying around in my skull like fireflies in a jar, but all of a sudden I'm unbearably tired and can't stay awake.
ref: 2006, Bart Yates, The Brothers Bishop:
glosses: The mind or brain.
glosses: A crust formed on the ladle, etc. by the partial cooling of molten metal.
glosses: The crown of the headpiece in armour.
glosses: A shallow bow-handled basket.
examples: text: Graduates […] will never forget that majestic stature, that massive brow, that commanding look, as its possessor paced the ante-chapel of his college, or took his seat of presidence among the skulls of Golgotha.
ref: 1881, The Academy, page 407:
glosses: The head or master of a college.
Synonyms: word: brainpan
word: harnpan
word: brain bucket
word: brainbox
word: cranium
word: skull
Hypernyms: bone
head
Coordinate terms: cranium
Meronyms: word: braincase
word: mandible
word: maxilla
word: zygomatic bone
word: lacrimal bone
word: nasal bone
word: ethmoid bone
word: sphenoid bone
word: frontal bone
word: temporal bone
word: parietal bone
word: occipital bone
Derived terms: Beauchene skull
cloverleaf skull
crumbling skull rule
exploded skull
get it through one's skull
get through one's thick skull
hot-skull
numbskull
numskull
out of one's skull
pseudo-skull
skull and bones
skull and crossbones
skull base disease
skullbone
skullcap
skull-collecting ant
skullcup
skull drum
skullet
skull-fuck
skullish
skull-like
skulllike
skull-measurer
skull-pan
skullscape
skull session
skull-thatcher
Skull Valley
skully
sugar skull
thickskull
thin skull rule
whip some skull on
Related terms: 💀