Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having a head of average breadth.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In craniometry, of medium size; neither large nor small; with a capacity of from 1,350 to 1,450 cubic centimeters.
  • Having a skull of medium breadth or capacity.
  • Of or relating to the mesencephalon.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to, or in the region of, the middle of the head.
  • adjective Having the cranial cavity of medium capacity; neither megacephalic nor microcephalic.
  • adjective Having the ratio of the length to the breadth of the cranium a medium one; mesaticephalic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of a person or animal Having a head that is not particularly short or long from front to back (relative to its width from left to right).
  • noun A mesocephalic person.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From meso- +‎ cephalic, hence literally roughly “medium-headed”.

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Examples

  • The Bossonians are of medium height and complection, their eyes brown or grey, and they are mesocephalic.

    The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian Howard, Robert E. 2003

  • The Bossonians are of medium height and complection, their eyes brown or grey, and they are mesocephalic.

    The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian Howard, Robert E. 2003

  • The Bossonians are of medium height and complexion, their eyes brown or grey, and they are mesocephalic.

    The Conan Chronicles Howard, Robert E. 1989

  • The Solomon Islanders for several years have been confirmed vegetarians, and the pronounced modification in their mesocephalic skulls and the improvement of their facial angle afford the surest guarantee against any relapse.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, June 4, 1919. Various

  • No one, he believed, had ever maintained that a mesocephalic skull was split or differentiated into a dolichocephalic and a brachycephalic variety in the bright sunshine of history.

    Scientific American Supplement No. 822, October 3, 1891 Various

  • Besides the general division of skulls into dolichocephalic, brachycephalic, and mesocephalic, other divisions had been undertaken, according to the height of the skull, and again according to the maxillary and the facial angles.

    Scientific American Supplement No. 822, October 3, 1891 Various

  • This distinction had formed the foundation for a more scientific classification into brachycephalic, dolichocephalic, and mesocephalic skulls.

    Scientific American Supplement No. 822, October 3, 1891 Various

  • Anthropologists generally speak of any one with an index of 75 (or where the breadth is 75\% of the length) and below this as dolichocephalic, or long-headed; from 75 to 80 is the class of the mesocephalic, intermediates; while above 80 is that of the subbrachycephalic and brachycephalic, or round-headed.

    Applied Eugenics Paul Popenoe 1933

  • The Eskimo are small, dolichocephalic, and have a yellow skin; the Tehuelches are large, dolichocephalic, and have a reddish skin; the Polynesians are large, mesocephalic, and have a reddish skin.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913

  • # Native races of South American = = small stature, nose projecting and straight, mesocephalic or dolichocephalic.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913

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