noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
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"Already I seemed to hear the water rippling against the desiccated bones and rattling them together, rolling my skull against Mahomed's, and his against mine, till at last Mahomed's stood straight up upon its vertebræ, and glared at me through its empty eyeholes, and cursed me with its grinning jaws, because I, a dog of a Christian, disturbed the last sleep of a true believer."
"Disk herniation is when cartilage, called 'intervertebral disk' and found between each vertebra, slips out."
Any of the bony or cartilaginous segments which make up the backbone, consisting in some lower vertebrates of several distinct elements which never become united, and in higher vertebrates having a short more or less cylindrical body whose ends articulate by pads of elastic or cartilaginous tissue with those of adjacent vertebrae and a bony arch that encloses the spinal cord.
Common synonyms include: axial skeleton bone, backbone element, bone, bone of spine, spinal bone, vertebrae.
Disk herniation is when cartilage, called 'intervertebral disk' and found between each vertebra, slips out.
Pronounced /ˈvɜː.tɪb.ɹə/.
Borrowing from Latin vertebra (“a joint”), from vertō (“to turn”) + -bra (instrumental nominal suffix). Having multiple vertebrae (plural of vertebra) in one's backbone instead of having a single bone or solid spine, allows for the movement of the body with bends and turns. Hence meaning 1.