1. animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a skull or cranium; [syn: vertebrate, craniate]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
craniate
n 1: animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a
segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a
skull or cranium [syn: vertebrate, craniate]