neural
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of neural
Explanation
Something described as neural has to do with your body's nervous system, particularly your nerves. When you stub your toe, a neural signal is sent to your brain to tell you how much it hurts. The word neural has a Greek root, neuron, or "nerve." This scientific term is sometimes used interchangeably with neurological for anything connected with the entire nervous system. Neural pathways describe the route messages take through your nerves and spinal cord to your brain, and a neural disorder is an ailment that affects that part of your body.
Vocabulary lists containing neural
Body Parts: Neur ("Nerve")
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"Magic and the Brain," Vocabulary from the magazine article
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"Magic and the Brain" by Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Hanlin Tang, the CTO of neural networks at Databricks, said he has spoken with clients not in technology who have dropped the term “hill-climbing” in calls—mainly AI-forward ones in consulting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
“If you think about the millions of years of evolution, our neural architecture wasn’t designed to say, ‘Is the tiger in the brush real or fake?’
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
“Over the next couple years, it will predominantly be a scientific debate, exactly like AI was debated in the universities using GPUs to look at neural networks.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
"As the accessibility of these medications continues to rise and patient uptake increases, it's crucial that we understand the neural mechanisms underlying the effects we're seeing," said Lorenzo Leggio, M.D.,
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
I noticed how the pencil tip quivered in his hand, and I wondered if he too was suffering some neural disorder.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
