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The most famous use of dorsal is with fin, whether it conjures the ominous dorsal fin of sharks or the benign, even benevolent, image of porpoises and dolphins. Less well-known is the botanical sense of dorsal, meaning "facing away from the axis or stem" (thus the underside of a leaf can be the dorsal side), or the linguistic sense referring to articulations made with the back part of the tongue (\k\ and \g\, for example). Dorsal can be used of non-living things too (in particular, the backs of airplanes), as can its opposite, ventral, which means "relating to the belly." Dorsal descends from Latin dorsum ("back"), which also gave us dossier (via French, for a bundle of documents labeled on the back) and reredos ("an ornamental screen or partition wall behind an altar").
Examples of dorsal in a Sentence
Robert Martone, Scientific American, 21 Dec. 2021
For one, there was the enigma of what scientists had believed was the dorsal organ’s position.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 24 June 2024
John Werner, Forbes, 20 Sep. 2024
As seen in the preview clip below, Hudson invites Hahn to share how the dorsal nudity in Agatha All Along‘s first episode came to be, and then presents her with a plaque commemorating her piece of Marvel history.
—Matt Webb Mitovich, TVLine, 27 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Dorsal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dorsal. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
dorsal
2 of 2 noun
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