sulcus

Borrowed from Latin sulcus (“a furrow made by a plow”). Doublet of sullow ("plough").

• IPA^(key): /ˈsʌl.kəs/
• Rhymes: -ʌlkəs

sulcus (plural sulci)

1. (anatomy) A furrow or groove in an organ or a tissue, especially that marking the convolutions of the surface of the brain.
   • 1999, Thomas C. Pritchard; Kevin D. Alloway, Medical Neuroscience‎, page 55:

     The largest sulcus, the longitudinal fissure, divides the brain into left and right hemispheres.

   • 2006, Inderbir Singh, Textbook of Human Neuroanatomy‎, 7 edition, page 72:

     Unlike most other sulci, the lateral sulcus is very deep.

   • 2014, John Kiernan; Raj Rajakumar, Barr's The Human Nervous System: An Anatomical Viewpoint‎, 10 edition, page 213:

     The large surface area of the human cerebral cortex results in a pattern of gyri and sulci.

   Synonym: fissure

   Coordinate term: gyrus

   Hyponyms: calcaneal sulcus, central sulcus, cingulate sulcus, coronal sulcus, cruciate sulcus, interlabial sulcus, intermammary sulcus, lacrimal sulcus, lateral sulcus, malleolar sulcus, postcentral sulcus, preauricular sulcus, precentral sulcus, radial sulcus, sagittal sulcus, sigmoid sulcus, sulcus ansatus, sulcus arteriae vertebralis, sulcus tubae auditivae, tympanic sulcus

2. (planetology) A region of subparallel grooves or ditches formed by a geological process.

• hemisulcus
• hyposulcus
• pseudosulcus
• sulcal
• sulcate

• “sulcus”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “sulcus”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

From Proto-Italic *solkos, from Proto-Indo-European *solk-o-s (“furrow”), *selk- (“to pull, drag”), whence also Old English sulh. Doublet of holcus.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈsul.kus/, [ˈs̠ʊɫ̪kʊs̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈsul.kus/, [ˈsulkus]

sulcus m (genitive sulcī); second declension

1. (agriculture) A furrow made by a plow.

   Synonyms: līra, porca

2. (transferred sense):
   1. (agriculture) Ploughing.
   2. (of things resembling a furrow):
      1. A long, narrow trench; a ditch.
      2. (in general) A rut or track.

Second-declension noun.

• bisulcus

• “sulcus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “sulcus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sulcus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• sulcus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7)‎, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN