ganglion
noun
Simple meaning
An encapsulated neural structure made up of a collection of cell bodies or neurons.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ganggleeahnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɡæŋɡliˈɑn
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
neuroanatomy
An encapsulated neural structure consisting of a collection of cell bodies or neurons
neuroanatomy
An encapsulated collection of nerve cell bodies, typically linked by synapses, and often forming a swelling on a nerve fiber.
neuroanatomy
Any of certain masses of gray matter in the central nervous system, as the basal ganglia.
pathology
A benign cystic tumour on a tendon sheath or joint capsule.
transferred sense
A centre of intellectual or industrial force, activity, etc.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An encapsulated neural structure consisting of a collection of cell bodies or neurons
Used this way, ganglion is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- 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
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A nerve cell whose body is outside the central nervous system.
Any of the ganglia of the autonomic system whose unmyelinated fibers innervate the internal organs.
An autonomic ganglion whose postganglionic fibers are distributed to the parotid gland.
Any of several masses of subcortical grey matter at the base of each cerebral hemisphere that seem to be involved in the regulation of voluntary movement.
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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.