acephalic
adjEtymology From a- + cephalic.
1
Without a head.
- an acephalic statue
- […] two acephalic sardines in mustard sauce are asleep in the rank darkness of their tin container.1990, Mark Leyner, My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, New York: Harmony Books, page 5:
3
Without a leader.
- an acephalic society
- 1688, uncredited translator, A Dissertation Concerning Patriarchal and Metropolitical Authority by Emmanuel Schelstrate, London: Matthew Turner, [Introduction], p. xx, […] he endeavours not only to shew that the English Church was Acephalic, that is, without a Head; but also Autocephalic, that is under its own proper Jurisdiction only […]
1 more example
- [the] acephalic democracy [of Aleut village communities]1980, William S. Laughlin, Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, page 144:
4
Human sciences, Linguistics, Phonology, Prosody, Sciences Deficient in the beginning, as a line of poetry that is missing its expected opening syllable.
- The acephalic pentameters yield to tetrameters with a starting dactyl or anapest […]1988, John Hollander, chapter 7, in Melodious Guile: Fictive Pattern in Poetic Language, Yale University Press, page 146:
5
Lacking the first portion of the text. (of a manuscript)
- All the texts, with the exception of the acephalic Homiletic Fragment I, begin with a large, plain capital letter […]2014, Mark C. Amodio, “The Poems of the Vercelli Book”, in The Anglo-Saxon Literature Handbook, Chichester: Blackwell, page 176:
- Related terms
- acephalia, acephalous, acephaly, anencephalic, cephalic