skull
n. countablen. the hard bone structure that protects your brain and forms your head. It is the part of the skeleton that gives your face its shape.
n. the bony framework of the head in vertebrates, which encloses and protects the brain and supports the structures of the face.
The doctor checked the X-ray to see if the skull was fractured.
Archaeologists carefully brushed away the dirt to reveal a prehistoric skull buried deep in the cave floor.
The thickness of the human skull varies across different regions of the head, providing maximum protection to the most vulnerable areas of the cerebral cortex.
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. 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”).
See school (“a multitude”).