✅ Skull refers to the part of the skeleton that protects the brain and forms the structure of the head. Informally, it can also refer to the brain or mind (I discovered an animal skull in my garden; Get it into your skull that I don’t want to go).

✅ Cranium refers to the skull, especially the part surrounding the brain (We can see an injury to the cranium, perhaps caused by an arrow).

✅ Skull and cranium refer to the same part of the skeleton. Skull has a slightly wider meaning, referring to the entire head, whereas cranium generally refers more specifically to the part of the skull around the brain.

Get these synonyms through your cranium!

✅ Jaw refers to either of the two bones that form the structure of the mouth, and can also refer to the part of the face covering those bones or to the mouth in general (He had a bruised jaw after the fight).

✅ Mandible refers to the lower jawbone in humans, the bottom part of a bird’s bill, or the mouthparts of insects, crustaceans, and some other animals (The crab’s mandible was extremely powerful).

✅ Jaw is the common word, and mandible is used as an anatomical term.

Get your mandible around these synonyms!

✅ Nose refers to the part of the face, in humans and some animals, that contains the nostrils and nasal passages (She had her nose pierced).

✅ Nares refers to the nostrils or nasal passages themselves (Breathing becomes more difficult when the nares are blocked).

✅ Nose is a more common term, whereas nares is an anatomical term.

Describe the nares of an enormous alien with the help of Grammar Coach.