acephalous

adj

1. Having no head.

   “[…] Mr. Cruickshank saw a Monster nine Months old, which lived thirty-six Hours after it was born, though it had no Cranium: […] But is this a Reason that we should believe the vital Functions and the Increase of the Body have no dependence on the Brain? I think not: for such acephalous Subjects never live long […]”

   ““But tell me, my Dea—my Psyche!— (With your wings outspread as to race With that swift and acephalous Nike Who lost her bean somewhere in Thrace)—”

2. Without a distinct head.
3. Having the style spring from the base, instead of from the apex, as is the case in certain ovaries
4. A system of society without centralised state authority, where power is welded amongst groups of community entities e.g. clans. Without a leader or chief.

   “an acephalous society / community”

   “[…] an Oecumenical Council is a whole, and a Body whereof the Pope, or he that presides in it in his place, is the Head[.] For there is no Acephalous Council, as M. Schelstrate speaks, that is to say, without a Head, calling that of Constance so in the Absence of the Pope.”

   “A very brief acephalous interim followed the death of the dark Dictator.”

5. Deficient in the beginning, as a line of poetry that is missing its expected opening syllable.

   “They have acephalous or headless Verses, which commence with a short Syllable instead of a long one:”

   “Sometimes verse lines “jump” the first syllable (in anapaestic and dactylic measures the first two syllables) of a regular metre. Such lines are said to be acephalous (headless) or, as acrostic writers would put it, “beheaded.””

6. Lacking the first portion of the text. (of a manuscript)
7. (rare)Without a beginning.