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skull

A school, company, or shoal. A knavish skull of boys and girls did pelt at him. These fishes enter in great flotes and skulls. (Holland)

See: school a multitude.

1. (Science: anatomy) The skeleton of the head of a vertebrate animal, including the brain case, or cranium, and the bones and cartilages of the face and mouth.

In many fishes the skull is almost wholly cartilaginous but in the higher vertebrates it is more or less completely ossified, several bones are developed in the face, and the cranium is made up, wholly or partially, of bony plates arranged in three segments, the frontal, parietal, and occipital, and usually closely united in the adult.

2. The head or brain; the seat of intelligence; mind. Skulls that can not teach, and will not learn. (Cowper)

3. A covering for the head; a skullcap. Let me put on my skull first. (Beau & Fl)

4. A sort of oar. See scull. Skull and crossbones, a symbol of death. See Crossbones.

Origin: OE. Skulle, sculle, scolle; akin to Scot. Skull, skoll, a bowl, Sw. Skalle skull, skal a shell, and E. Scale; cf. G. Hirnschale, Dan. Hierneskal. Cf. Scale of a balance. The bony skeleton of the head of vertebrates.Otherwise known as the cranium, the skull is a bone protecting the brain in vertebrates.