What does cribriform mean?
Cribriform describes something pierced like a sieve — riddled with small holes or marked by a lattice of openings. The word comes from Latin cribrum, meaning sieve, combined with forma, shape, so it literally means 'sieve-shaped'. Its most familiar use is anatomical: the cribriform plate, the thin perforated portion of the ethmoid bone in the skull through which fibres of the olfactory nerve pass from the nose to the brain. Pathologists also use it to characterise certain tumours, such as some breast and prostate carcinomas, whose cancer cells arrange themselves into rounded, sieve-like patterns — a feature with real diagnostic significance. Biologists may apply it more broadly to any porous, straining, or sifted structure. Because it belongs mainly to medical and scientific register, cribriform is rarely heard in casual conversation, but it remains a precise and evocative term wherever structure matters as much as function, capturing in one word the image of a surface turned into a filter.
Pierced with many small holes; sieve-like in form or structure.
"The fossil showed a cribriform surface honeycombed with tiny openings."
Most often encountered in the anatomical phrase 'cribriform plate' and in pathological descriptions of tumour growth patterns.
Relating to or designating the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone, through which olfactory nerve fibres pass into the cranial cavity.
"Fracture of the cribriform plate can allow cerebrospinal fluid to leak from the nose."
Your sense of smell depends on a literal sieve: the cribriform plate is the perforated bone that lets scent signals slip from your nose straight into your brain.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cribriform
Cribriform derives from the Latin cribrum, meaning a sieve or riddle, joined to forma, meaning shape or form — hence 'sieve-shaped'. It was adopted into English scientific vocabulary in the seventeenth century, when anatomists needed a precise term for perforated structures. It shares its root with the English verb cribble, an old word meaning to sift or pass through a coarse sieve, and ultimately connects to other sieving words such as riddle in its archaic sense.
Related word forms
How cribriform is actually used
A technical term used chiefly in anatomy, histology, pathology, and biology. It appears almost exclusively in formal scientific writing rather than everyday speech. The anatomical phrase 'cribriform plate' is by far its most frequent use.
Easily confused with cribriform
Cuneiform means wedge-shaped (as in ancient Sumerian writing), whereas cribriform means sieve-like and full of small holes.