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The most famous use of dorsal is with fin, whether it conjures the ominous dorsal fin of sharks or the benign, even benevolent, image of porpoises and dolphins. Less well-known is the botanical sense of dorsal, meaning "facing away from the axis or stem" (thus the underside of a leaf can be the dorsal side), or the linguistic sense referring to articulations made with the back part of the tongue (\k\ and \g\, for example). Dorsal can be used of non-living things too (in particular, the backs of airplanes), as can its opposite, ventral, which means "relating to the belly." Dorsal descends from Latin dorsum ("back"), which also gave us dossier (via French, for a bundle of documents labeled on the back) and reredos ("an ornamental screen or partition wall behind an altar").
Examples of dorsal in a Sentence
Robert Martone, Scientific American, 21 Dec. 2021
For one, there was the enigma of what scientists had believed was the dorsal organ’s position.
—Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 24 June 2024
Matt Webb Mitovich, TVLine, 27 Oct. 2024
When a wave of dorsal/ventral muscle contractions proceeds from the back to the front of the animal, the animal is propelled backwards.
—John Werner, Forbes, 20 Sep. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Dorsal.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dorsal. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
dorsal
1 of 2 adjective
dorsal
2 of 2 noun
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