GC: n

S: TFD – http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/wormian+bone (last access: 19 June 2016); NCBI – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23959948 (last access: 19 June 2016).

N: 1. – Wormian (adj): Eponym from last name of Ole Worm.
Worm \ˈvȯrm\, Ole (Latin Olaus Wormius) (1588–1654), Danish physician. Worm was a professor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen and personal physician to King Christian V as well. In 1634 he described the small bones that occasionally occur along the lambdoid suture of the human skull.

– bone (n): Old English ban “bone, tusk,” from Proto-Germanic *bainam (source also of Old Frisian ben, Old Norse bein, Danish ben, German Bein). No cognates outside Germanic (the common PIE root is *os-; see osseous); the Norse, Dutch, and German cognates also mean “shank of the leg,” and this is the main meaning in Modern German, but English never seems to have had this sense.

2. Wormian bones are a subset of the small intrasutural bones that lie between the cranial sutures formed by the bones of the skull vault. The title Wormian bones is reserved for abnormal intrasutural bones that are typically found around the lambdoid suture.

3. Some consider them abnormal only if greater than 10 in number.

S: 1. MW – http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/Wormian%20bone (last access: 19 June 2016); Etymonline – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bone (last access: 19 June 2016). 2 & 3. Radiopaedia – http://radiopaedia.org/articles/wormian-bones (last access: 19 June 2016).

SYN: sutural bone

S: MW – http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/Wormian%20bone (last access: 19 June 2016)

CR: Wormian