skull - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

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head

head

skull

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Skull of a human (Homo sapiens) viewed from the front

The skull of a hippopotamus

mouse skull

From Middle English sculle, scolle (also schulle, scholle), probably from a dialectal form of Old Norse skalli (“bald head, skull”), itself probably related to Old English sċealu (“husk”), to Proto-Norse *ᛋᚲᚨᛚᛟ (*skalo), from Proto-Germanic *skallô; compare Finnish skallo. Compare Scots scull, Danish skal (“skull”) and skalle (“bald head, skull”), Norwegian skalle, Swedish skalle and especially dialectal Swedish skulle.[1]

Related to Old Norse skoltr (“brow”), skolptr (“muzzle, snout”), akin to Icelandic skoltur (“jaw”), dialectal Swedish skult, skulle (“dome, crown of the head, skull”), Norwegian Nynorsk skult, skolt (“cranium, head (of a hammer); crag; hub”), Middle Dutch scolle, scholle, Middle Low German scholle, schulle (“clod, sod”), and Scots skult, skolt. Compare also Old High German sciula, skiula (“skull”). Possibly related to Latin celsus (“lofty, high, tall”), collis (“hill”).

Also related to Old Norse skǫllóttr, Icelandic sköllóttur, Old Swedish skallotter, Swedish skallig, Danish skaldet, Norwegian skallet (“bald”).

skull (plural skulls)

  1. (anatomy) The main bones of the head considered as a unit; including the cranium, facial bones, and mandible.
    • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 110:
      All the time six or eight large Chinese gongs were being beaten by the vigorous arms of as many young men, producing such a deafening discord that I was glad to escape to the round house, where I slept very comfortably with half a dozen smoke-dried human skulls suspended over my head.
    • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:
      He was about to roar when, lying among the black sticks and straw under the cliff, he saw a whole skull—perhaps a cow's skull, a skull, perhaps, with the teeth in it. Sobbing, but absent-mindedly, he ran farther and farther away until he held the skull in his arms.
  2. These bones as a symbol for death; death's-head.
  3. (figuratively) The mind or brain.
    • 2006, Bart Yates, The Brothers Bishop:
      My thoughts are flying around in my skull like fireflies in a jar, but all of a sudden I'm unbearably tired and can't stay awake.
  4. A crust formed on the ladle, etc. by the partial cooling of molten metal.
  5. The crown of the headpiece in armour.
  6. (Scotland) A shallow bow-handled basket.
  7. (UK, obsolete, slang) The head or master of a college.
    • 1881, The Academy, page 407:
      Graduates […] will never forget that majestic stature, that massive brow, that commanding look, as its possessor paced the ante-chapel of his college, or took his seat of presidence among the skulls of Golgotha.

bones of the head: cranium and mandible

death's-head, skull

skull (third-person singular simple present skulls, present participle skulling, simple past and past participle skulled)

  1. To hit in the head with a fist, a weapon, or a thrown object.

  2. (transitive, golf) To strike the top of (the ball).

    • 2002, Robert C. Knox, Golf Balls Are Female, page 148:
      Monte swung so hard at the next ball that he skulled it straight right, into the pond: 8 in, 9 out.

  3. To drink everything that remains in a glass by upending it.

    • 2016, Karen Nolan, The Y Necklace:
      She nearly skulled the next drink and, despite feeling a little woozy, she felt a lot better.
    • 2021, Mary Fifield, Kristin Thiel, Fire & Water:
      That was at Jessica Eyre's sixteenth, and while nothing terrible had happened (I had skulled four Lemon Ruskis and fallen asleep in the garden), it was agreed by all that I had embarrassed myself.
    • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 337:
      He lifted his pint to skull what was left, but suddenly the whole thing— the smell of smoke and spilled beer, the flat Glasgow voices, the chiming of the cash register, the clatter of glasses— was somehow too much.
    • 2022, Lena Moore ·, Coveted:
      He skulled his drink, set the glass down, then grabbed the bottle and ambled over to the other couch.

  4. ^ “skull”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

See school (“a multitude”).

skull (plural skulls)

  1. Obsolete form of school (“a multitude”).[1]

    • 1586, William Warner, Albion’s England:
      A knavish skull of boys and girls did pelt at him.
    • 1601, Philemon Holland (translator), Pliny the Elder (author), The Historie of the World. Commonly called, The Natvrall Historie of C. Plinivs Secvndvs., book IX, chapter xv: “Of the names and natures of many fishes.”:
      These fishs, togither with the old Tunies and the young, called Pelamides, enter in great flotes and skulls, into the sea Pontus, for the sweet food that they there find: and every companie of them hath their fever all leaders and captaines; and before them all, the Maquerels lead the way; which, while they be in the water, have a colour of brimstone; but without, like they be to the rest.

  2. ^ “skull”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

An alternative form of skuld (“debt”), from Old Norse skuld, from Proto-Germanic *skuldiz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kéltis. Compare gälla and gälda.

Used to indicate for whom or why something is done.

skull c

  1. sake
    Jag är glad för din skull
    I'm happy for you (for your sake)
    Jag gjorde det för din skull
    I did it for you (for your sake)
    för gamla tiders skull
    for old times' sake
    Han dog för sin övertygelses skull
    He died for the sake of his convictions
    Hon gjorde det för rättvisans skull
    She did it for the sake of justice
    Jag gjorde ett litet misstag, men för den skull behöver du inte bli elak
    I made a small mistake, but that doesn't mean you have to be mean ("but for that sake ((just) because of that) you don't have to be mean" – "för den skull" can be considered an idiomatic phrase)
    Gränssnittet är enkelt utan att för den skull vara begränsat
    The interface is simple without (despite being simple) being limited ("The interface is simple without for that sake (without, because of that) being limited")
    För edra hjärtans hårdhets skull tillstadde Moses eder att skiljas från edra hustrur (archaic language)
    Moses because of the hardness of your hearts (for the sake of the hardness of your hearts) suffered you to put away your wives (Matthew 19:8)