"grandmother cell" meaning in English

See grandmother cell in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: grandmother cells [plural]
Etymology: Coined around 1969 by Jerry Lettvin, referring to the idea of recognising one's grandmother. Head templates: {{en-noun}} grandmother cell (plural grandmother cells)
  1. A hypothetical neuron that represents a complex but specific concept or object, and activates upon recognition. Wikipedia link: Jerome Lettvin, grandmother cell Related terms: Jennifer Aniston neuron
    Sense id: en-grandmother_cell-en-noun-nXaDPQZ8 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined around 1969 by Jerry Lettvin, referring to the idea of recognising one's grandmother.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "grandmother cells",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "grandmother cell (plural grandmother cells)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A hypothetical neuron that represents a complex but specific concept or object, and activates upon recognition."
      ],
      "id": "en-grandmother_cell-en-noun-nXaDPQZ8",
      "links": [
        [
          "hypothetical",
          "hypothetical"
        ],
        [
          "neuron",
          "neuron"
        ],
        [
          "complex",
          "complex"
        ],
        [
          "specific",
          "specific"
        ],
        [
          "concept",
          "concept"
        ],
        [
          "object",
          "object"
        ],
        [
          "activate",
          "activate"
        ],
        [
          "recognition",
          "recognition"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "Jennifer Aniston neuron"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Jerome Lettvin",
        "grandmother cell"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "grandmother cell"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined around 1969 by Jerry Lettvin, referring to the idea of recognising one's grandmother.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "grandmother cells",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "grandmother cell (plural grandmother cells)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Jennifer Aniston neuron"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A hypothetical neuron that represents a complex but specific concept or object, and activates upon recognition."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "hypothetical",
          "hypothetical"
        ],
        [
          "neuron",
          "neuron"
        ],
        [
          "complex",
          "complex"
        ],
        [
          "specific",
          "specific"
        ],
        [
          "concept",
          "concept"
        ],
        [
          "object",
          "object"
        ],
        [
          "activate",
          "activate"
        ],
        [
          "recognition",
          "recognition"
        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Jerome Lettvin",
        "grandmother cell"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "grandmother cell"
}

Download raw JSONL data for grandmother cell meaning in English (1.0kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (9a96ef4 and 4ed51a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.