Definition of "spinal column" [spinal column]

• The series of articulated vertebrae, separated by intervertebral disks and held together by muscles and tendons, that extends from the cranium to the coccyx or the end of the tail, encasing the spinal cord and forming the supporting axis of the body; the spine. Also called vertebral column. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "G. Fritsch made use of the length of the spinal column for the comparison of the bodily proportions (modulus)."
• "The decapitations were a horror when done by one of our other warriors with a machete or Bowie knife hacking through neck and spinal column or letting arms get in the way so they had to be hacked off before the neck could be reached—nasty business that I regret ever seeing and regret even more that my son saw."
• ""Not in the least, " he replied, loosening, like an iguana butcher, the spinal column of one of his beloved zippers."