vagus nerve
noun
Simple meaning
Either of the tenth pair of cranial nerves which extend from the medulla oblongata down into the abdomen.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vuhguhsnervIPA pronunciation (US)
vəɡəsnɚv
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
Either of the tenth pair of cranial nerves which extend from the medulla oblongata down into the abdomen. Branches of these important nerves supply the tongue, larynx, lungs, gut, and heart.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: (neuroanatomy) Either of the tenth pair of cranial nerves which extend from the medulla oblongata down into the abdomen. Branches of these important nerves supply the tongue, larynx, lungs, gut, and heart.
Used this way, vagus nerve 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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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.