Definitions

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

  • noun The upper half of the cranium, especially the anterior portion above and including the forehead.
  • noun The forehead.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The upper half or part of the head; the dome of the skull; the calvarium, including the vertical, parietal, and frontal regions of the cranium: … distinguished from occiput.
  • noun In entomology, the front of the epicranium, or that part between the vertex and the clypeus.

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

  • noun (Anat.) The fore part of the head.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The part of the head of a bird between the base of the bill and the vertex.

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

  • noun The front part of the head or skull (as distinct from the occiput).

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

  • noun the front part of the head or skull (including the forehead)

Etymologies

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

[Latin : sēmi-, semi- + caput, head; see kaput- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Latin sinciput ("half a head”; “smoked hog’s cheek or half-jowl”; (transferred senses): “brain”, “head"), whence the French sinciput.

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Examples

  • “And had I made the observation sooner,” continued the magistrate, “I might have spared myself a good deal of trouble and a headache which extends from my occiput to my sinciput.”

    Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon 2003

  • The skull-caps of plaited and blackened palm leaf, though common in the interior, are here rare; an imitation is produced by tressing the hair longitudinally from occiput to sinciput, making the head a system of ridges, divided by scalp-lines, and a fan-shaped tuft of scarlet-stained palm frond surmounts the poll.

    Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003

  • The front portion of it is termed ‘bregma’ or ‘sinciput’, developed after birth-for it is the last of all the bones in the body to acquire solidity, - the hinder part is termed the

    The History of Animals 2002

  • In the face the part below the sinciput and between the eyes is termed the forehead.

    The History of Animals 2002

  • The brain lies underneath the sinciput; the occiput is hollow.

    The History of Animals 2002

  • Wet your forefinger with your spittle; stick a broken gold-leaf on the sinciput; clip off a beggar's beard to make it tresses, kiss it; fall down before it; worship it.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843 Various

  • After the eighth day a cranial abscess spontaneously opened, from the sinciput to the occiput, and a large quantity of "corruption" was evacuated.

    Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine 1896

  • After the eighth day a cranial abscess spontaneously opened, from the sinciput to the occiput, and a large quantity of ` ` corruption '' was evacuated.

    Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine 1896

  • "And had I made the observation sooner," continued the magistrate, "I might have spared myself a good deal of trouble and a headache which extends from my occiput to my sinciput."

    Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon Jules Verne 1866

  • The skull-caps of plaited and blackened palm leaf, though common in the interior, are here rare; an imitation is produced by tressing the hair longitudinally from occiput to sinciput, making the head

    Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 Richard Francis Burton 1855

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