cranium
/ˈkɹeɪ.ni.əm/
cranium noun: that part of the skull consisting of the bones enclosing the brain, but not including the bones of the face or jaw.
Noun
cranium (plural craniums or crania)
- That part of the skull consisting of the bones enclosing the brain, but not including the bones of the face or jaw.
- The Skull is divided into two parts, the Cranium and the Face. The Cranium is composed of eight bones; […]1858, Henry Gray, “The Skull”, in Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical, page 19
- ‘I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,’ he said.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 201
- Synonyms:
- braincase, neurocranium
- The upper portion of the skull, including the neurocranium and facial bones, but not including the jawbone (mandible).
- In this study, the cranium recovered from the River Witham in Lincoln exhibited a black metallic staining on the surfaces of the teeth.2014, Emma L. Brown, Ronald A. Dixon, Jason W. Birkett, “The Discolouration of Human Teeth from Archaeological Contexts: Elemental Analysis of a Black Tooth from a Roman Cranium Recovered from the...
- Synonym of skull.
- Synonyms:
- skull
cranium meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
cranium in Tamil
- மண்டையோடு, மண்டைஓடு, மண்டை எலும்பு, மண்டை, மண்டைக்கூடு, மண்டையறை
cranium in Urdu
- کاسہ سر, کھوپڑی
cranium in Bengali
- খুলি, করোটি
cranium in Malayalam
- skull, head, brainpan
- മണ്ട, തലമണ്ട, കപാലം, നൃകപാലം, ശിരസ്സ്, ഉത്തമാഗം
More languagesFewer languages
- cranium in Kannada
- ತಲೆಬುರುಡೆ, ಎಲುದಲೆ, ತಲೆಕಾಯಿ, ತಲೆಡವುಗೆ
- cranium in Sanskrit
- कपाल kapāla
- cranium in Arabic
- قِحْف qiḥf
- cranium in Malay
- kranium
- cranium in Vietnamese
- hộp sọ
Examples of cranium in a sentence
- The cranium of the fowl is composed of the same elements as are present in the mammalian cranium, save that there is no interparietal.1908, J. McFadyean, “Part I: Osteology and Arthrology”, in The Comparative Anatomy of the Domesticated Animals, page 165:
- The cranial bones, or cranium (kra′ne-um), enclose and protect the fragile brain and furnish attachment sites for head and neck muscles.2010, Elaine N. Marieb, Katja Hoehn, “Chapter 7 "The Skeleton"”, in Human Anatomy and Physiology, 8th edition, page 200:
- "The cranium is clearly plesiomorphic in overall form, presenting primitive traits shared by earlier hominins," the authors wrote.2025 September 27, Julia Jacobo, “Million-year-old skull could rewrite timeline of human origin, researchers say”, in ABC News, archived...
Synonyms of cranium
Forms of cranium
| plural | craniums |
|---|---|
| plural | crania |
Origin of cranium
From Medieval Latin crānium (“skull”), from Ancient Greek κρᾱνίον (krāníon, “skull”). By surface analysis, crani- + -um.
Words formed from cranium
Words that rhyme with cranium
- geranium
- unobtainium
- germanium
- titanium
- uranium
- basicranium
- dermatocranium
- desmocranium
- ectocranium
- intracranium
- neurocranium
- osteocranium
3 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about cranium
- What does cranium mean?
- Cranium means that part of the skull consisting of the bones enclosing the brain, but not including the bones of the face or jaw.
- What is cranium in Tamil?
- Cranium in Tamil is மண்டையோடு, மண்டைஓடு, மண்டை எலும்பு. See Cranium meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use cranium in a sentence?
- The cranium of the fowl is composed of the same elements as are present in the mammalian cranium, save that there is no interparietal.
- What part of speech is cranium?
- Cranium is a noun.
- How do you pronounce cranium?
- Cranium is pronounced /ˈkɹeɪ.ni.əm/.
- What is the plural of cranium?
- The plural of cranium is craniums.
Words near cranium in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cranium (page history and authors); cranium (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cranium (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cranium (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cranium (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); cranium (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cranium.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-cranium.wav.
Cite this entry: “cranium.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cranium. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.