Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to the occiput or to the occipital bone: an occipital fracture.
- n. The occipital bone.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of, pertaining to, or connected with the occiput or hindhead: opposed to sincipital.
- Having a comparatively large cerebellum, as a person or people; having the hind part of the head more developed than the front.
- In entomology See foramen.
- Small, a branch of the second cervical nerve, supplying a portion of the back part of the scalp and the occipitalis and attollens aurem muscles. Also called occipitalis minor.
- The intersection of the visual axis with the spherical field of regard behind the head.
- Internal, the point of intersection of the vertical and horizontal ridges on the inner surface of the occipital bone.
- In craniometry, one of two triangles, the superior and the inferior, having the biparietal and bimastoid diameters for their bases respectively, and their apices at the inion.
- n. In zoology and anatomy, the occipital bone; the bone of the hindhead; a compound bone, consisting of a basioccipital, a supra-occipital, and a pair of exoccipital bones, circumscribing the foramen magnum, and together constituting the first or occipital segment of the skull. These several elements commonly coalesce; but the basioccipital may be represented only by cartilage, as in a batrachian; or some of the elements may unite with otic elements and not with other occipital elements; or several of the elements may unite with one another and also with sphenoid, parietal, and temporal elements. The occipital bears two condyles for articulation with the atlas in all mammals; one in all Sauropsida (birds and reptiles); one (or, if two, as in a batrachian, with no ossified basioccipital) in Ichthyopsida. See cuts under Balænidæ, Catarrhina, craniofacial, cranium, Cyclodus, Esox, Felidæ, and skull.
- n. In herpetology, one of a pair of plates or scutes upon the occiput of many serpents. See cut under Coluber.
- n. The occipitalis muscle.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or pertaining to the occiput (back of the head) or the occipital bone.
- n. anatomy The occipital bone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Anat.) Of or pertaining to the occiput, or back part of the head, or to the occipital bone.
- n. (Anat.) The occipital bone.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or relating to the occiput
Etymologies
- From New Latin occipitalis, from Latin occiput ("the back of the head"), from ob ("over against") + caput ("head"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The position of the tentorium can easily be ascertained in your own head by the fact that where it crosses the median line there is a little projection of bone called the occipital knob, very prominent on some persons, barely perceptible on others.”
“I passed my hand absently across my hair - what Dixon had described as the occipital region.”
“Above the foramen magnum the median supra-occipital bone completes what is called the occipital arch.”
“One such therapy, called occipital nerve stimulation, appears promising in the treatment of cluster headaches and migraines, studies show, although larger studies are needed.”
“My first bullet pierced the frontal bone of his skull above his right eye and exited through the left occipital bone.”
“Both groups suffered injuries most often in the occipital region at the back of the head.”
The Wall Street Journal: A New Weapon in the Fight Against Superbugs
“I felt very sorry for the man with occipital neuralgia, which causes intense stabbing pain on one side of the head, but my pain was bilateral and felt like pressure, not electrical shocks.”
“At first scholars thought that there had to be a command center within the brain to synthesize all the different functions exercised by the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and so forth—a command center to coordinate all this activity in order to be able to tell the limbs, the lungs, and so forth what to do.”
“Attention has focused on the “verbal conceptual association area,” located at the junction of the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes of the brain.”
“A cotillion of neurons did their bob-and-whirl in my occipital lobe, and that created an electrical whoosh that the electrodes could easily pick up.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘occipital’.
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cc
impeccable, accouterment, accoutrement, cc, access, baccivorous, desiccant, floccular, successor, occidental, laccolithic, laccolith and 143 more...
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phrontistery - o
from phrontistery.info
oakum, oakus, oast, obambulate, obdormition, obduracy, obedible, obedientiary, obeism, obeliscolychny, obelize, obelus and 504 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 505 more...
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My favorites
foible, sidereal, amygdala, woodnote, cogitate, silvern, ollalieberry, ramify, diaphanous, surreality, myopia, subcelestial and 75 more...
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Physical anthropology
acclimatization, adriatic, aegyptid, aeta, aethiopid, africoid, ainuid, aistin, alae, alare, albino, allele and 202 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, O
opacity, opaline, olfactory, orthoepy, orthoepy, oleaginous, obloquy, oasitic, obtrude, orthotic, overweening, ostinato and 125 more...
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Anatomically Correct
canthus, vibrissa, femoral, sphenoid, dura mater, pia mater, epiglottis, glottis, mons veneris, plaque, tibia, ulna and 96 more...
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Some Wednesday words
Just another arbitrary list of words that come up for me today, June 20 2007
tutelage, hobby horse, abracadabra, occipital, martinet, margarita, persona, cute, sharp, acute, confabulate, conspire and 97 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Ironweed
Words gathered while reading Ironweed by William Kennedy.
asteraceae, brogan, gravid, gandy, advent, slithy, dipso, flinty, suspire, henna, heller, nutsy and 90 more...
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adrift's Words
alluvial, motley, amygdala, skein, echo, lucent, evening, clasp, weft, ruinous, waver, eave and 122 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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the physical experience
wank, snog, tendon, sinew, sauce shelf, pet, arse, astigmatism, bisexual, brassiere, breast, climax and 186 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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nfk9595's Words
magnetohydrodynamics, bovine, epistle, gargantuan, kerfuffle, verbiage, morose, coup de main, elan, achtung, uber, verboten and 497 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for occipital.
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