Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The external periosteum that covers the outer surface of the skull.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The external periosteum of the cranium.
- noun 2. The general surface or extent of the cranial bones; the cranium or skull itself.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Anat.) The periosteum which covers the cranium externally; the region around the cranium.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun anatomy The
membrane (orperiosteum ) which covers the outer surface of theskull . - noun humorous The
head ,skull ; one'smind .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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All the bones, excepting so much of the teeth as are out of the sockets, and those parts of other bones which are covered with cartilages, are surrounded by a fine membrane, which on the skull is called pericranium, but in other parts periosteum.
Popular Lectures on Zoonomia Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease Thomas Garnett 1784
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It is nourished chiefly from the pericranium which is firmly bound down along the lines of the sutures.
Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. Alexander Miles 1893
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Indignantly, Sir Cameron wonders whether Dr. Crany has persuaded Latitia “that some terrible propensities are revealed on the surface of my pericranium” (2.4.696).
Feminist Utopianism and Female Sexuality in Joanna Baillies Comedies 2008
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The ponderous pericranium of General Jan Risingh sank upon his breast; his knees tottered under him; a deathlike torpor seized upon his frame, and he tumbled to the earth with such violence that old Pluto started with affright, lest he should have broken through the roof of his infernal palace.
Washington Irving 2004
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Now, Mrs. Honour had unluckily poured so much of this liquid fire down her throat, that the smoke of it began to ascend into her pericranium, and blinded the eyes of Reason, which is there supposed to keep her residence, while the fire itself from the stomach easily reached the heart, and there inflamed the noble passion of pride.
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The moment you shake hands with them, you feel in the firm flesh of palm and finger that their heart's blood circulates purely and freely from the point of the highest hair on the apex of the pericranium, to the edge of the nail on the large toe of the right foot.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 Various
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Charles Lamb gazed at him curiously, rose, went to the sideboard and lighted a candle, with which he advanced, in solemn wise, to where the trite talker sat, and said as one who is about to look at some unusual object of interest-holding his candle near the poor man's head the while: "Will you allow me to examine this gentleman's pericranium?"
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When we first take our place about a man, the receptacles of the pericranium are immediately searched.
The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 George A. Aitken
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A most fortunate thought arrived in my pericranium just at that instant.
Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 Charles Herbert Sylvester
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The pickets having been driven in, I noticed an animal of striking appearance surrounded by a knot of others, suddenly throw up his head, and elevating his tail simultaneously with his pericranium, wheel suddenly in an opposite direction and gallop away, doubtlessly, as fast as his legs and hoofs would carry him.
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