What does "midbrain" mean?

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).

Midbrain

Q: What is a synonym for "midbrain"?

Common synonyms include: mesencephalon, cerebellum, cerebral cortex, cerebrum, convolution, fissure.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
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).
"When the instinctive and subconscious world of the snake is confronted in initiation, the vital force of the snake rises and floods the second brain, the midbrain, the limbic ring."
2
the middle portion of the brain wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

mesencephalon cerebellum cerebral cortex cerebrum convolution fissure

Example

More examples

"When the instinctive and subconscious world of the snake is confronted in initiation, the vital force of the snake rises and floods the second brain, the midbrain, the limbic ring."

Etymology

From mid- + brain.

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