a. [f. Fr. acéphale or late L. acephal-us (a. Gr. ἀκέφαλος) + -OUS.]
1. Without the head, headless.
1731. Bailey, vol. II., Acephalous, without a head.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp. some modern travellers still pretend to find Acephalous people in America.
1774. Cooper, in Phil. Trans., LXV. 311. I take the liberty to remit you an account of the delivery of a very curious acephalous monster.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., II. 219/2. In the true acephalous fœtus the bones of the face … are of course wanting.
1846. Grote, Greece, I. I. xvi. 592. Without the ancestorial god the whole pedigree would have become not only acephalous, but also worthless and uninteresting.
1854. Badham, Prose Halieutics, 397. With so strong an inducement for fishmongers to decapitate congers, acephalous specimens would probably be … common.
2. Having or recognizing no governing head or chief.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Acephalous, in a figurative sense is more frequently applied to persons destitute of a leader, or chief … We find a great number of canons of council … against Acephalous clerks.
1857. Sir F. Palgrave, Hist. Norm. & Eng., II. 324. Regality was the organic element of the commonwealth … an acephalous body politic was inconceivable.
1858. Gladstone, Homer, I. 502. The acephalous state of the Elian division of the army.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. xv. 267. The tendency to division was strengthened by the acephalous condition of the Courts.
3. Zool. Having no part of the body specially organized as a head or seat of the brain and special senses. Acephalous Mollusks = ACEPHALA.
1741. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Acephalous worms, or what are supposed such, are frequent.
1835. Kirby, Hab. & Inst. Anin., I. ix. 268. The acephalous or bivalve Molluscans.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 166/2. The mouth … in the acephalous annelida is directed forwards.
1879. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, I. ii. § 49. 49. The two primary divisions of the [Molluscous] series,—the cephalous and the acephalous.
4. Bot. Headless, with the natural head aborted or cut off.
1880. Gray, Bot. Text-Bk., 393.
5. Wanting the beginning, as an imperfect manuscript; wanting the first syllable or foot of the verse, said esp. of a hexameter beginning with a short syllable.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Acephalus is used in poetry for a verse which is lame or defective, by wanting a beginning.
1841. De Quincey, Rhet., 403 (1860). A false or acephalous structure of sentence.
