Phrase guide

limbic system

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A part of the brain, in humans and various other animals, that is involved in emotion, motivation, and emotional association with memory; in humans it includes the amygdala, cingulate gyrus, fornicate gyrus, hippocampus, hypothalamus, mammillary body, nucleus accumbens, orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: anatomy, medicine, neuroanatomy, neurology, neuroscience, sciences

Examples

  • Holonyms: brain < central nervous system, CNS

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

a system of functionally related neural structures in the brain that are involved in emotional behavior

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: visceral brain, limbic brain

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: neural structure

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.

Across languages

Translations

11 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Catalan: sistema límbic — part of the human brain
  • Chinese Mandarin: 邊緣系統 /边缘系统 (biānyuán xìtǒng) — part of the human brain
  • Chinese Mandarin: 邊緣系 /边缘系 (biānyuánxì) — part of the human brain
  • Czech: limbický systém — part of the human brain
  • French: système limbique — part of the human brain
  • Greek: μεταιχμιακό σύστημα (metaichmiakó sýstima) — part of the human brain
  • Japanese: 大脳辺縁系 (dainō hen'enkei) — part of the human brain
  • Portuguese: sistema límbico — part of the human brain
  • Russian: лимби́ческая систе́ма (limbíčeskaja sistéma) — part of the human brain
  • Spanish: sistema límbico — part of the human brain
  • Ukrainian: лімбі́чна систе́ма (limbíčna systéma) — part of the human brain