From Middle English sculle, scolle (also schulle, scholle), probably from a dialectal form of Old Norse skalli, itself probably related to Old English sċealu.

Alternatively, perhaps from Old Norse skoltr, skolptr, akin to Icelandic skoltur, dialectal Swedish skult, skulle, Middle Dutch scolle, scholle, Middle Low German scholle, schulle, and Scots skult, skolt.

• enPR: skŭl, IPA: /skʌl/

skull (plural skulls)

1. (anatomy) The main bones of the head considered as a unit; including the cranium, facial bones, and mandible.
   • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob's Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC ↗; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC ↗:

     He was about to roar when, lying among the black sticks and straw under the cliff, he saw a whole skull—perhaps a cow's skull, a skull, perhaps, with the teeth in it. Sobbing, but absent-mindedly, he ran farther and farther away until he held the skull in his arms.

2. These bones as a symbol for death; death's-head.
   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, Prologue:

     Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
     ⁠Thou madest Life in man and brute;
     ⁠Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
     Is on the skull which thou hast made.

3. (figuratively) The mind or brain.
4. A crust formed on the ladle, etc. by the partial cooling of molten metal.
5. The crown of the headpiece in armour.
6. (Scotland) A shallow bow-handled basket.

• brainpan
• harnpan

• French: crâne
• German: Schädel, Kranium
• Italian: cranio, teschio
• Portuguese: crânio, caveira
• Russian: че́реп
• Spanish: cráneo (1), calavera (2)

• German: Totenkopf
• Italian: teschio
• Portuguese: caveira
• Russian: че́реп
• Spanish: calavera

• Portuguese: cabeça

skull (skulls, present participle skulling; simple past and past participle skulled)

1. To hit in the head with a fist, a weapon, or a thrown object.
2. (transitive, golf) To strike the top of (the ball).
   • 2002, Robert C. Knox, Golf Balls Are Female, page 148:

     Monte swung so hard at the next ball that he skulled it straight right, into the pond: 8 in, 9 out.

3. To drink everything that remains in a glass by upending it.

See school ("a multitude").

skull (plural skulls)

1. Obsolete form of school
   • 1586, William Warner, Albion’s England:

     A knavish skull of boys and girls did pelt at him.

   • 1601, Philemon Holland (translator), Pliny the Elder (author), Natural History (Pliny), book IX ↗, chapter xv: “Of the names and natures of many fishes.”:

     These fishs, togither with the old Tunies and the young, called Pelamides, enter in great flotes and skulls, into the sea Pontus, for the sweet food that they there find: and every companie of them hath their fever all leaders and captaines; and before them all, the Maquerels lead the way; which, while they be in the water, have a colour of brimstone; but without, like they be to the rest.