acephalous
/eɪˈsɛf(ə)ləs
/ /eɪˈkɛf(ə)ləs/adjective
1Lacking a head: an acephalous skeleton...
- Thus the design may sometimes appear acephalous and at other times polycephalous (Hydra-headed).
2Having no leader or chief: an acephalous society...
- During the late nineteenth century in societies ranging from the acephalous to interlacustrine kingdoms, senior men bolstered their authority through a monopoly of access to locally brewed beer.
- The resistance is largely decentralised, localised and acephalous.
- Sierra Leone was the object of similar plunder, leaving an acephalous state in rampant disorder only to be stabilised by British Tommies.
3 Prosody (Typically of a hexameter beginning with a short syllable) lacking a syllable or syllables in the first foot.
Origin
Mid 18th century: via medieval Latin from Greek akephalos 'headless' (from a- 'without' + kephalē 'head') + -ous.
- Maxwell's bridge
- Maxwell's demon
- Maxwell's distribution
- Maxwell's duiker
- Maxwell's equations
- Maxwell's law
- Maxwell–Boltzmann
- Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution
- Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics
- may
- maya
- Mayakovsky, Vladimir
- Mayan
- Mayanist
- mayapple
- may as well
- May ball
- May-basket
- maybe
- May-bird
- May-blob
- May blossom
- May bowl
- May bug
- May-bush