Definitions

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

  • noun The midbrain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The midbrain; a segment of the encephalon consisting essentially of the corpora quadrigemina or optic lobes and the crura cerebri. See brain. Also mesencephal, mesocephalon.

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

  • noun (Anat.) The middle segment of the brain; the midbrain. Sometimes abbreviated to mesen. See brain.

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

  • noun A part of the brain located rostral to the pons and caudal to the thalamus and the basal ganglia, composed of the tectum (dorsal portion) and the tegmentum (ventral portion).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the middle portion of the brain

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin, from Ancient Greek μέσος (mesos, "middle") + ἐγκέφαλος (enkephalos, "cephalon, brain"); see also cephalon.

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