cranial index

English

Noun

cranial index (plural cranial indices or cranial indexes)

1. (medicine, anthropology) A measure of the elongation or flatness of a head or skull: the maximum breadth of the skull divided by its maximum length, multiplied by 100.

   The width of the skull is 18 cm and the length 24 cm, so the cranial index is 75.

See also

• cranial ratio (expressed as a fraction or percentage)
• cephalic index/ratio (a distinction is sometimes made that the cephalic index applies to living heads and the cranial index to bones, but this is not consistently observed)