acephalous
adjective
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The English word acephalous was borrowed from Medieval Latin, in which it meant "headless" and was chiefly used to describe clerics not under a bishop or lines of verse having the first foot missing or abbreviated. The fountainhead of these meanings is the Greek word kephalē, meaning "head." Other English descendants of kephalē include cephalic, meaning "of or relating to the head" or "directed toward or situated on or in or near the head," and encephalitis, meaning "inflammation of the brain."
Example Sentences
Nnamdi Madichie, Quartz, 29 Apr. 2021 Word History
borrowed from Medieval Latin acephalus "headless" (originally alluding to clerics not under a bishop), going back to Latin, "lacking the first syllable, in metrics," borrowed from Greek aképhalos, from a- a- entry 2 + -kephalos, adjective derivative of kephalḗ "head" — more at cephalic
1715, in the meaning defined at sense 2
Medical Definition
acephalous
adjective
ə-ˈsef-