occipital
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
The bone at the back of the skull in humans and different other animals.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ahksipuhtuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɑkˈsɪpətəl
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
anatomy
The bone at the back of the skull in humans and various other animals.
zootomy
An occipital scale in reptiles.
adjective
anatomy
Of, pertaining to, or located within or near the occiput (back of the head) or the occipital bone.
anatomy
Of or relating to the occiput
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The bone at the back of the skull in humans and various other animals.
Used this way, occipital 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.
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 saucer-shaped membrane bone that forms the back of the skull.
That part of the cerebral cortex in either hemisphere of the brain lying in the back of the head.
Any of the convolutions of the outer surface of the occipital lobe of the cerebrum.
That part of the cerebral cortex in either hemisphere of the brain lying in the back of the head.
Prominence on the outer surface of the occipital bone.
A vein that drains the occipital region.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The suture between the occipital and the temporal bones.
A vein that drains the occipital region.
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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.