Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Placed before or in front.
- adjective Occurring before in time; earlier.
- adjective Located near or toward the head in lower animals.
- adjective Located on or near the front of the body in higher animals.
- adjective Located on or near the front of an organ or on the ventral surface of the body in humans.
- adjective Botany In front of and facing away from the axis or stem.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of place: fore; situated more to the front: the opposite of
posterior . - Of time: going before; preceding; antecedent; prior; earlier.
- In zoology and zootomy, nearer the head, as opposed to posterior; cephalal, as opposed to caudal; oral, as opposed to aboral: thus, the head is anterior to the neck, which is itself anterior to the trunk and tail.
- In human anatomy, situated in front, with respect to that side of the body on which is the face; ventral, as opposed to dorsal; hemal, as opposed to neural: as, the anterior pillars of the pharynx; the anterior walls of the belly; the anterior pillars of the spinal cord.
- In botany, in axillary inflorescence, noting the side most distant from the axis and nearest the subtending leaf or bract: as, the anterior side of a flower: otherwise called
inferior or lower. - Synonyms See
previous .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Before in time; antecedent.
- adjective Before, or toward the front, in place
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Before inplace . - adjective
Before orearlier intime ;prior to;preceding . - adjective anatomy Nearer the
forward end; nearer thehead of an animal or thefront of a human.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or near the head end or toward the front plane of a body
- adjective earlier in time
- noun a tooth situated at the front of the mouth
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word anterior.
Examples
-
The term anterior pole is applied to the central point of the anterior curvature of the bulb, and that of posterior pole to the central point of its posterior curvature; a line joining the two poles forms the optic axis.
X. The Organs of the Senses and the Common Integument. 1c. The Organ of Sight 1918
-
Surgeons perform neck surgery from the front or back, which they refer to as anterior and posterior approaches.
NY Daily News KATIE CHARLES 2011
-
You have the knee and you have these ligaments around it called the anterior cruciate ligament and the posterior cruciate ligament.
-
The terms anterior or ventral, and posterior or dorsal, are employed to indicate the relation of parts to the front or back of the body or limbs, and the terms superior or cephalic, and inferior or caudal, to indicate the relative levels of different structures; structures nearer to or farther from the median plane are referred to as medial or lateral respectively.
Introduction 1918
-
Of the two crura the anterior is shorter and less curved than the posterior.
X. The Organs of the Senses and the Common Integument. 1d. 3. The Auditory Ossicles 1918
-
It forms the posterior boundary of the talocalcaneonavicular joint, and is sometimes described as the anterior interosseous ligament.
-
Is the foregoing family a branch of that of Herefordshire, now ennobled; or does it come down from one of the name anterior to the time when such earldom was made patent, viz. from Sir Richard Harley, 28 Edward I.: whose armorial bearings, according to one annalist, is mentioned as _Or, bend cotized sable_?
-
In cingulotomy, surgeons thread wires into an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate.
-
In cingulotomy, surgeons thread wires into an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate.
-
Researchers have fingered parts of the parietal and frontal lobes as well as a structure called the anterior cingulate as important for superior cognition.
High-Aptitude Minds: The Neurological Roots of Genius | Disinformation 2008
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.