having a skull or cranium, as fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals
noun
2.
a craniate animal
craniate in American English
(ˈkreiniɪt, -ˌeit)
adjective
1.
having a cranium or skull
noun
2.
a craniate animal
Word origin
[1875–80; crani(um) + -ate1]This word is first recorded in the period 1875–80. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: cross-fertilization, fan-tan, knockabout, slime mold, weekend-ate is a suffix occurring in loanwords from Latin, its English distribution parallelingthat of Latin. The form originated as a suffix added to a- stem verbs to form adjectives (separate). The resulting form could also be used independently as a noun (advocate) and came to be used as a stem on which a verb could be formed (separate; advocate; agitate). In English the use as a verbal suffix has been extended to stems of non-Latin origin(calibrate; acierate)