Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A group of nerve cells forming a nerve center, especially one located outside the brain or spinal cord.
  • noun Medicine A benign cystic lesion resembling a tumor, occurring in a tendon sheath or joint capsule.
  • noun A center of power, activity, or energy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An enlargement in the course of a nerve, containing or consisting of a collection of ganglion-cells; any assembly of ganglion-cells.
  • noun A knot or enlargement on a lymphatic; a lymphatic gland. See cut under lymphatic.—
  • noun In pathology:
  • noun An encysted enlargement in connection with the sheath of a tendon: called simple ganglion.
  • noun Inflammation, with effusion into one or more sheaths of tendons: called diffuse ganglion.
  • noun An enlarged bursa.
  • noun In botany, the mycelium of certain fungals.
  • noun The superior ganglion, or ganglion of the root of the pneumogastric nerve, in its passage through the jugular foramen.
  • noun The lower ganglion, or ganglion of the trunk. Also vagus ganglion.
  • noun Same as Gasserian ganglion.
  • noun In cephalopods, same as stellate ganglion .
  • noun In cephalopods, a large flat ganglion lying on the inner surface of the mouth, in front of the gill.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A mass or knot of nervous matter, including nerve cells, usually forming an enlargement in the course of a nerve.
  • noun A node, or gland in the lymphatic system.
  • noun (Med.) A globular, hard, indolent tumor, situated somewhere on a tendon, and commonly formed by the effusion of a viscid fluid into it; -- called also weeping sinew.
  • noun a nerve cell. See Illust. under Bipolar.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun anatomy A mass of tissue.
  • noun neuroanatomy A cluster of interconnecting nerve cells outside the brain.
  • noun by extension A centre of power or authority

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an encapsulated neural structure consisting of a collection of cell bodies or neurons

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Greek, cystlike tumor, nerve bundle.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek γάγγλιον (ganglion, "encysted tumour on a tendon, anything gathered into a ball").

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Examples

  • Nerve fibre outgrowth from the chick ganglion is determined after 24 hours.

    Physiology or Medicine 1986 - Press Release 1986

  • "The word ganglion {ganglee-on) is (keek for "knot" and was originally used by Hippocrates and his school for knotlike tumors beneath the skin.

    The Human Brain Asimov, Isaac 1963

  • These in turn communicate with nerve cells in a third layer, known as the ganglion cells, that send their fibers into the optic nerve (Fig. 160).

    Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools Francis M. Walters

  • The sensory root arises from the genicular ganglion, which is situated on the geniculum of the facial nerve in the facial canal, behind the hiatus of the canal.

    IX. Neurology. 5g. The Facial Nerve 1918

  • It contains a group of nerve cells termed the ganglion habenulæ.

    IX. Neurology. 4c. The Fore-brain or Prosencephalon 1918

  • The powerful lower centers are no longer fully active, particularly the great lumbar ganglion, which is the clue to our sensual passionate pride and independence, this ganglion is atrophied by suppression.

    Fantasia of the Unconscious 1907

  • But at the lumbar ganglion, which is the center of separate identity, the knowledge is of a different mode, though the term is the same.

    Fantasia of the Unconscious 1907

  • (A ganglion is a mass of nervous matter including nerve cells.)

    The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath William Walker Atkinson 1897

  • The lower wall of the infra-orbital canal is cut away by a chisel, the posterior wall of the antrum by a smaller trephine, the nerve thus isolated is traced up to and past Meckel's ganglion, which is removed close to the foramen rotundum by cutting the nerve by curved blunt-pointed scissors.

    A Manual of the Operations of Surgery For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners Joseph Bell 1874

  • After its exit from the jugular foramen the vagus is joined by the cranial portion of the accessory nerve, and enlarges into a second gangliform swelling, called the ganglion nodosum (ganglion of the trunk); through this the fibers of the cranial portion of the accessory pass without interruption, being principally distributed to the pharyngeal and superior laryngeal branches of the vagus, but some of its fibers descend in the trunk of the vagus, to be distributed with the recurrent nerve and probably also with the cardiac nerves.

    IX. Neurology. 5j. The Vagus Nerve 1918

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