phrenology

1. (medicine, biology, historical) The pseudoscience which studies the relationships between a person's character and the morphology (structure) of the skull.Examples: "Phrenology involves feeling the bumps in the skull to determine an individual's psychological attributes."; "MR. BURNS: Who could forget such a monstrous visage? She has the sloping brow and cranial bumpage of the career criminal. MR. SMITHERS: Uh, sir, phrenology was dismissed as quackery 160 years ago."; "Phrenology was the practice of correlating bumps on a skull with mental powers and attributes of character."Synonyms: cranioscopycountablehistoricaluncountable