phrenology

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical: a discredited system that claimed a person's character and mental faculties could be read from the shape of the skull

   The duke advertised a phrenology lecture and offered to draw charts of character.

Formed from phreno-, from Greek phren 'mind,' + -logy 'study.' Franz Joseph Gall developed the system around 1800; its claims about skull contours and personality were later rejected as pseudoscience.

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