Encephalon

//ɛnˈsɛfələn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The area of central nervous system that includes all higher nervous centers, enclosed within the skull and continuous with the spinal cord; synonym of brain.

    "Meronyms: prosencephalon, telencephalon, diencephalon; mesencephalon; rhombencephalon, metencephalon, myelencephalon"

  2. 2
    that part of the central nervous system that includes all the higher nervous centers; enclosed within the skull; continuous with the spinal cord wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
brainbeanbraingray matterheadnoddle

Example

More examples

"Meronyms: prosencephalon, telencephalon, diencephalon; mesencephalon; rhombencephalon, metencephalon, myelencephalon"

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐγκέφαλος (enképhalos, “within the head”), from ἐν (en, “in”) + κεφαλή (kephalḗ, “head”).

Related phrases

central nervous systemspinal cord

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