• anencephalous •
Printable Version Pronunciation: æn-en-se-fê-lês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Brainless, lacking a brain, empty-headed.
Notes: It is always more polite to use the medical term for whatever might be offensive. Here is the medical term for "brainless"; it has the added benefit that those you would use it for will not understand it! It offers a wonderful way to vent your frustration inoffensively while building your vocabulary. What a bargain! It comes from the noun anencephaly "the absence of a brain".
In Play: We are all constantly bumping into people who seem to have nothing in their heads; often they drift into positions of power: "I don't know how many anencephalous presidents this company can endure and stay afloat." You probably have noticed. We may safely extend the meaning of this word to the output of the witless: "Have you read the latest anencephalous memo from headquarters, the one about saving electricity by not using pencil sharpeners?" (It must have been written by someone who just pulled his or her head out of one.)
Word History: Today's Good Word is a Latinization of the Greek word anenkephalos, used the by great 2nd century Greek physician Galen (not to be confused with my grandson, Dr. Galen Beard, now approaching his 2nd birthday). It comprises four elements, a(n)- "without" + en "in" + kephale "head" + an adjective suffix. We find the prefix a(n)- in many English words, amoral, amorphous (without shape), and agnostic; the N is inserted before vowels. En comes from the same source as in and en with the same meaning in many other European languages. Greek kephale "head" comes from the same Proto-Indo-European word as English gable and German Giebel "gable".
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