Standard Lemma guide

phrenology

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.

  • General-American: /frənˈɑlədʒi/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • rhymes with -ɒlədʒi

1

noun

Meaning 1

The pseudoscience which studies the relationships between a person's character and the morphology (structure) of the skull.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, historical, uncountable

Topics: biology, medicine, natural-sciences, sciences

Examples

  • Phrenology involves feeling the bumps in the skull to determine an individual's psychological attributes.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

a now abandoned study of the shape of skull as indicative of the strengths of different faculties

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: craniology

History

Etymology

Etymology tree English phreno- Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos) Proto-Indo-European *-h2 Proto-Indo-European *-éh2 Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh2 Proto-Hellenic *-íā Ancient Greek -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā) Ancient Greek -λογῐ́ᾱ (-logĭ́ā)bor. Latin -logialbor. French -logiebor. English -logy English phrenology From phreno- + -logy.

Across languages

Translations

39 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Afrikaans: frenologie — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Armenian: գանգագուշակություն (gangagušakutʻyun) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Armenian: գանգագիտություն (gangagitutʻyun) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Asturian: frenoloxía — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Basque: frenologia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Bulgarian: френология (frenologija) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Catalan: frenologia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Chinese Mandarin: 骨相學 /骨相学 (gǔxiàngxué) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Czech: frenologie — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Danish: frenologi — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Dutch: frenologie — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Estonian: frenoloogia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Finnish: frenologia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • French: phrénologie — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Galician: frenoloxía — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • German: Phrenologie — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Hindi: कपालविद्या (kapālvidyā) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Hungarian: frenológia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Icelandic: höfuðlagsfræði — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Indonesian: frenologi — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Italian: frenologia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Japanese: 骨相学 (kossōgaku) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Kazakh: френология (frenologiä) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Korean: 골상학 (golsanghak) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Lithuanian: frenologija — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Mongolian: френологи (frenologi) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Norwegian: frenologi — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Polish: frenologia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Portuguese: frenologia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Romanian: frenologia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Russian: френоло́гия (frenológija) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Slovak: frenológia — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Spanish: frenología — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Swedish: frenologi — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Turkish: frenoloji — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Ukrainian: френологія (frenolohija) — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Uzbek: frenologiya — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Vietnamese: não tướng học — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology
  • Volapük: frenolog — the science or discredited pseudo-science of phrenology