vertebra
Americannoun
noun
-
Any of the bones that make up the vertebral column. Each vertebra contains an arched, hollow section through which the spinal cord passes. In humans, the vertebrae are divided into cervical, thoracic, and lumbar sections, and the sacrum and coccyx are both made up of a series of fused vertebrae. The vertebrae are separated by cartilaginous intervertebral disks.
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See more at skeleton
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of vertebra
1570–80; < Latin: (spinal) joint, equivalent to verte ( re ) to turn ( see verse) + -bra noun suffix
Explanation
A vertebra is one of the little bones in your spinal column; there are vertebrae up and down your back. Your whole body is full of bones, and one of those types of bones are vertebrae: the bones in your back. These bones are very important because they protect your spinal column, which allows your brain to communicate with the rest of your body. A serious back injury could damage a vertebra, resulting in pain or spinal damage. If you bend over and then straighten up slowly, you can feel yourself rising one vertebra at a time.
Vocabulary lists containing vertebra
Long Way Down
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Human Anatomy and Physiology - Introductory
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Human Anatomy and Physiology - High School
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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.
See Examples For:
Another nest was found inside a hutia vertebra, in the space that once housed the spinal cord.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 3, 2026
Her mineralized vertebra of a juvenile Jurassic ichthyosaur exudes: “Now I am a treasure for you to love—a part of me to call your own.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026
That incident saw her airlifted to hospital with pins and rods inserted into her back for a fractured vertebra.
From Barron's ● Jan. 16, 2026
Martin, the owner of Surfbreak, a co-living community near Honolulu’s Ala Moana Beach Park in Hawaii, told the Honolulu Civil Beat that Mangione suffered from a misaligned vertebra that would pinch his spinal cord.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2024
It rises vertebra by vertebra up my neck.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
The discovery is based on fossil remains that include teeth, vertebrae, and toe bones.
From Science Daily ● May 29, 2026
He was hospitalized and suffered a fractured thoracic vertebrae, multiple lacerations and contusions, and injuries to his left arm and lower leg, a spokesperson for Giuliani said at the time.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 3, 2026
The 36-year-old was taken to a local hospital with severe shoulder damage and fractures to several vertebrae in his back, and had major surgery.
From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2026
The palm wood snaking through the center of Mohammad Al Faraj’s eerie installation seems like the skeletal vertebrae of some giant creature.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 13, 2026
It is protected by a flexible backbone of separate vertebrae.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
These are the Rocky Mountains, the American Andes, the colossal vertebras of the continent!
From The Scalp Hunters by Stewart, F.A.
Its peculiar characteristic is its extraordinary fragility— arising from the muscles being articulated quite through the vertebras.
From The Western World Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North and South America by Kingston, William Henry Giles
The fish is called a Vertebrate animal, because it has a backbone, made up of numbers of separate bones called vertebras.
From Twilight and Dawn Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation by Pridham, Caroline
These vertebras are piled up one upon the other; for God has made our bodies upright; our faces, are lifted upwards, and our eyes look straight before us.
From Twilight and Dawn Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation by Pridham, Caroline
A little aft of “midships” a pyramidal lump of fatty substance projected several feet above the line of the vertebras.
From The Ocean Waifs A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Reid, Mayne
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.
