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''ganglion'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''ganglion'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260215184259-00-⌔

ganglion - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

ganglion (plural ganglia or ganglions)

  • (neuroanatomy)
    • An encapsulated collection of nerve cell bodies, typically linked by synapses, and often forming a swelling on a nerve fiber.
      • ✤ Hyponyms: autonomic ganglion, cervical ganglion, dorsal root ganglion, Gasserian ganglion, geniculate ganglion, Meckel’s ganglion, spinal ganglion
      • ✤ [T]he wonderfully diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants are generally known, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large as the quarter of a small pin’s head.1
    • Any of certain masses of gray matter in the central nervous system, as the basal ganglia.
      • ✤ Synonym: nucleus
      • ✤ The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.2
  • (transferred sense) A centre of intellectual or industrial force, activity, etc.
  • (pathology) A benign cystic tumour on a tendon sheath or joint capsule.
    • ✤ Synonym: ganglion cyst

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek γᾰγγλῐ́ον (gănglĭ́on, “encysted tumour on a tendon or aponeurosis”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈɡæŋ.ɡli.ən/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -æŋɡliən

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1871, Charles Darwin, “On the Manner of Development of Man from some Lower Form”, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. […], volume I, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Part I (On the Descent of Man), page 145: ↩

  2. 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847: ↩

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Secondary

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