Adjacent Words

spinal column definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: the series of vertebrae forming the axis of the skeleton and protecting the spinal cord; "the fall broke his back" [syn: spinal column, vertebral column, spine, backbone, back, rachis]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1831 the axial skeleton of a vertebrate that consists of an articulated series of vertebrae which extend from the neck to the tail and protect the spinal cord — called also backbone

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Spinal Spi"nal, a. [L. spinalis, fr. spina the spine: cf. F. spinal. See Spine.] 1. (Anat.) Of, pertaining to, or in the region of, the backbone, or vertebral column; rachidian; vertebral. 2. Of or pertaining to a spine or spines. Spinal accessory nerves, the eleventh pair of cranial nerves in the higher vertebrates. They originate from the spinal cord and pass forward into the skull, from which they emerge in company with the pneumogastrics. Spinal column, the backbone, or connected series or vertebr[ae] which forms the axis of the vertebrate skeleton; the spine; rachis; vertebral column. Spinal cord, the great nervous cord extending backward from the brain along the dorsal side of the spinal column of a vertebrate animal, and usually terminating in a threadlike appendage called the filum terminale; the spinal, or vertebral, marrow; the myelon. The nervous tissue consists of nerve fibers and nerve cells, the latter being confined to the so-called gray matter of the central portions of the cord, while the peripheral white matter is composed of nerve fibers only. The center of the cord is traversed by a slender canal connecting with the ventricles of the brain.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(spinal columns) Your spinal column is your spine. N-COUNT