What does "anencephaly" mean?

A lethal birth defect involving the abscence of a major portion of the brain and parts of the skull are missing; absence of the encephalon.

What is a synonym for "anencephaly"?

Common synonyms include: anencephalia, anencephalus, anencephalus.

Pronounced //æn.ɪnˈsɛ.fə.lɪ//.

//æn.ɪnˈsɛ.fə.lɪ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A lethal birth defect involving the abscence of a major portion of the brain and parts of the skull are missing; absence of the encephalon.
2
a defect in brain development resulting in small or missing brain hemispheres wordnet

Internationalism. Learned borrowing from New Latin anencephalia. By surface analysis, an- + encephaly.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.