means One of the small interlocking bones that stack to form your spine, each surrounding and protecting a section of the spinal cord.

from Straight from Latin vertebra, meaning a joint or something that turns, built on the verb vertere, "to turn" — the same root that gives us "vertigo," "reverse," and "versus." The bone was named for the way the spine bends and pivots, so a vertebra is quite literally a "turning point."