Other forms: skulls
The skull is the hard bone case that protects the brain. Fracture the skull, skull and crossbones, the base of the skull.
It is twenty-two bones rather than one, fused along seams called sutures that stay open in a baby to let the head pass and then grow. The jaw is the only one that moves. As an emblem it means death and warning, which is what the skull and crossbones did on a poison bottle. Note skulduggery, which is unrelated.
1nounskullThe hard bone case that protects the brain.
“The cyclist's helmet protected his skull when he fell.”
skull is a bone structure.
Middle English sculle is probably from a Norse word for a bald head or shell. It is related to a word meaning husk.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)kelH-
Proto-Germanic
*skallô
gmq-pro
*ᛋᚲᚨᛚᛟ
Old Norse
skalli — bald head, skull
Middle English
sculle
English, today
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 gmq-pro ᛋᚲᚨᛚᛟ, from Proto-Germanic skallô; compare Finnish kallo. Compare Scots scull, Danish skal (“skull”) and skalle (“bald head, skull”), Norwegian skalle, Swedish skalle and especially dialectal 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, gmq-osw skallotter, Swedish skallig, Danish skaldet, Norwegian skallet (“bald”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA