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atlas

noun

Form of atla , plural of atla.

Simple meaning

The uppermost vertebra of the cervical spine in the neck in humans and some other animals.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

atluhs

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈætləs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. anatomy

    The uppermost vertebra of the cervical spine in the neck in humans and some other animals.

  2. A collection of maps in book form

  3. A bound collection of maps often including tables, illustrations or other text.

  4. A bound collection of tables, illustrations, etc. on any given subject.

  5. One who supports a heavy burden; mainstay.

  6. A subgroup of the Berber languages.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The uppermost vertebra of the cervical spine in the neck in humans and some other animals.

Used this way, atlas is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Medicine/healthcare
  • Science
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Nearby words

  • map collection , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use atlas

  • “We used the atlas to find our way around the new city.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

atlas powderhistorical atlasworld atlascolor atlashigh atlasmount atlasnational atlasmiddle atlas

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • atlas cedarnounCompound term

    Tall Algerian evergreen of Atlas mountains with blue-green leaves.

  • atlas mothnounCompound term

    Giant saturniid moth widespread in Asia.

  • atlas mountainsnounCompound term

    A mountain range in northern Africa between the Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert.

  • atlas vertebranounCompound term

    The 1st cervical vertebra.

  • atticus atlasnounCompound term

    Giant saturniid moth widespread in Asia.

  • dialect atlasnounCompound term

    An atlas showing the distribution of distinctive linguistic features.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: uppermost vertebra of the cervical spine in the neck in humans and some other animals

map collectionRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.