Word.ws English Dictionary

mammillary body

mammillary body noun: one of a pair of small round bodies, located on the undersurface of the human brain, that act as a relay for impulses coming from the amygdalae and hippocampi to the thalamus, and (as part of the diencephalon) form part of the limbic system.

mammillary body: one of a pair of small round bodies, located on the undersurface of the human brain, that act as a...
Image: Images are generated by Life Science Databases(LSDB), CC BY-SA 2.1 jp, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mammillary body (plural mammillary bodies)

  1. One of a pair of small round bodies, located on the undersurface of the human brain, that act as a relay for impulses coming from the amygdalae and hippocampi to the thalamus, and (as part of the diencephalon) form part of the limbic system.
    • The mammillary body is the most posterior part of the hypothalamus; there exist medially large and small cell divisions.2004, Robert Melillo, Gerry Leisman, Neurobehavioral Disorders of Childhood: An Evolutionary Perspective, page 99
    • The anterior column of the fornix extends inferiorly to converge upon the anterolateral aspect of the mammillary body.2010, Thomas P. Naidich, Henri M. Duvernoy, Bradley N. Delman, Duvernoy's Atlas of the Human Brain Stem and Cerebellum, page 380

Forms of mammillary body

pluralmammillary bodies

Origin of mammillary body

From mammillary (“resembling a breast or nipple”) + body.

Words formed from mammillary body

  • lateral mammillary nucleus
  • medial mammillary nucleus

Questions about mammillary body

What does mammillary body mean?
Mammillary body means one of a pair of small round bodies, located on the undersurface of the human brain, that act as a relay for impulses coming from the amygdalae and hippocampi to the thalamus, and (as part of the diencephalon) form part of the limbic system.
What part of speech is mammillary body?
Mammillary body is a noun.
What is the plural of mammillary body?
The plural of mammillary body is mammillary bodies.

Words near mammillary body in the dictionary

  1. mammillarias
  2. mammillaries
  3. mammillariform
  4. mammillary
  5. mammillary bodies
  6. mammillary body
  7. mammillate
  8. mammillated
  9. mammillation
  10. mammillations
  11. mammilliform

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mammillary body (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:

Cite this entry: “mammillary body.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mammillary_body. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.