a. Also -kephalic. [f. BRACHY- + Gr. κεφαλή head: cf. κεφαλικός of or pertaining to the head.] lit. Short-headed: used in Ethnology to denote skulls of which the breadth is at least four-fifths of the length: opposed to DOLICHOCEPHALIC.
1849–52. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 1355/2. The Cranium is Mongoliform and brachycephalic.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), I. ix. 281. I have met with Brachycephalic Scots.
1866. Huxley, Preh. Rem. Caithn., 83. Skulls with a cephalic index of 0·8, or more, are Brachycephalic.
1877. Dawson, Orig. World, 427. The brachy-kephalic head.
So Brachycephales, more freq. -cephali [mod. Latin], men with brachycephalic skulls. Brachycephalism, the condition of being brachycephalic. Brachycephalous, a. = brachycephalic. Brachycephaly = brachycephalism.
1865. Reader, No. 113. 227/1. A race of brachycephales.
1863. A. Ramsay, Phys. Geog. (1878), 581. They belong mainly to the Brachycephali or broad-skulls.
1880. Nature, 8 Jan., 224. The skull ranges from brachycephalism in the Siberians and Peruvians to extreme dolichocephalism in the Eskimo.
1883. K. Blind, in Academy, 17 March, 190/1. The solution of the large prevalence of brachykephalism in Asia Minor may one day be found in the introduction of Thrakian race-elements.
1872. trans. Figuier’s Hum. Race, Introd. 25. A short cranium is styled brachycephalous.
1873. Darwin, Desc. Man, I. I. iv. 148. Short men incline more to brachycephaly.
