occiput

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin occiput, occipitium (“the back part of the head”), from ob (“over against”) + caput (“head”). Compare sinciput.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑksɪpʌt/, /ˈɑksɪpət/
• IPA^(key): /ˈɒksɪpʌt/, /ˈɒksɪpət/

Noun

occiput (plural occipita or occiputs)

1. (chiefly anatomy) The back part of the head or skull (contradistinct from sinciput).

   Antonym: sinciput

   • 1953, Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation (1971 Panther Books Ltd publication), part II: “Search by the Foundation”, chapter 9: ‘The Conspirators’, page 95, ¶ 8

     And then came Turbor, who sat quietly and unemotionally through the fifteen minute process, and Munn, who jerked at the first touch of the electrodes, and then spent the session rolling his eyes as though he wished he could turn them backwards and watch through a hole in his occiput.

   • 2002, Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, published 2008:

     He wore a large white cotton Nubian shirt, trimmed with red pompons, and shaved his head, except for one lock at the occiput ‘by which Mohammed lifts you up on Judgement Day’.

Related terms

• occipital

Translations

back of the head or skull

• Arabic: قَذَال m (qaḏāl)
• Armenian: ծոծրակ (hy) (cocrak)
• Aromanian: mãdular n
• Catalan: occípit m
• Czech: týl (cs) m
• Dutch: achterhoofd (nl) n
• Esperanto: okcipito, postkranio
• French: occiput (fr) m
• German: Hinterkopf (de) m
• Hausa: kwanyā f
• Hungarian: tarkó (hu), nyakszirt (hu)
• Irish: cúlphlaic f
• Latgalian: pakauss m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Latvian: pakausis
• Lithuanian: pakaušis
• Polish: potylica (pl) f
• Portuguese: occipício m, occipúcio m, occipital (pt) m, occiput m
• Russian: заты́лок (ru) (zatýlok)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: затиљак m

  Roman: zatiljak (sh) m

• Spanish: occipucio (es) m
• Swedish: bakhuvud (sv) n
• Tagalog: pilipot, pangawol
• Thai: ท้ายทอย (táai-tɔɔi)

Further reading

• “occiput”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “occiput”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “occiput”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

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French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin occiput.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɔk.si.pyt/

Noun

occiput m (plural occiputs)

1. occiput

   Antonym: sinciput

Further reading

• “occiput”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Latin

Etymology

ob +‎ caput

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈok.ki.put/, [ˈɔkːɪpʊt̪]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈot.t͡ʃi.put/, [ˈɔtː͡ʃiput̪]

Noun

occiput n (genitive occipitis); third declension

1. back of the head, occiput

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	occiput	occipita
Genitive	occipitis	occipitum
Dative	occipitī	occipitibus
Accusative	occiput	occipita
Ablative	occipite occipitī	occipitibus
Vocative	occiput	occipita

Derived terms

• occipitium

References

• “occiput”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• occiput in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

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Portuguese

Noun

occiput m (plural s)

1. (anatomy) occiput (back of the head or skull)

Synonyms

• occipício, occipúcio, occipital