cranium

KRAY-nee-uhm · noun

Origin

Cranium comes from Medieval Latin crānium, meaning skull, which itself was borrowed from Ancient Greek κρᾱνίον (krāníon, "skull").

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The word passed from Greek into Medieval Latin with its meaning intact, then into English still meaning skull.

Its structure breaks down simply as crani- plus the noun ending -um, a pattern shared by other Latin-derived anatomical terms.

From Ancient Greek

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