The building blocks of English

Affixes

occipito-

The occipital bone.

Medieval Latin occipitalis, from ob‑, against, plus caput, capit‑, head.

The occipital bone is the saucer-shaped bone at the back and base of the cranium. Words in occipito‑ are adjectives that mainly refer to this bone plus another part of the skeleton, as in occipitotemporal, of or relating to the occipital and temporal bones, which lie in the temples; others are occipitoparietal, occipital and parietal bones, which form the central side and upper back part of each side of the skull; occipitofrontal, occipital and frontal bones; and occipitoatlantal, occipital bone and the atlas vertebra, the topmost vertebra of the backbone. All these terms frequently appear hyphenated.