Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A specimen or species of the family Hippuritidæ one of the Rudistes; a horsetail. Hippurites were formerly classed by Lamarck and Latreille with belemnites, etc., as being cephalopods.
  • noun A kind of fossil cupcoral, Cyathophyllum ceratites of Goldfuss.
  • Pertaining to or having the characters of the Hippuritidæ
  • Same as hippuritic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Paleon.) A fossil bivalve mollusk of the genus Hippurites, of many species, having a conical, cup-shaped under valve, with a flattish upper valve or lid. Hippurites are found only in the Cretaceous rocks.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun paleontology A fossil bivalve mollusk of the genus Hippurites, of many species, having a conical, cup-shaped undervalve, with a flattish upper valve or lid.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek ἵππος (hippos, "horse") + οὐρά (oura, "tail") +‎ -ite

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Examples

  • Our English chalk which ranges across the north of France, Belgium, Denmark, and the North of Germany, represents a portion of the deposits of that sea floor, probably accumulated in a northern, somewhat isolated basin, while the massive hippurite limestone of Southern Europe represents the deposits of the opener ocean.

    Geographical Evolution 1909

  • (about 3580 feet thick) is characterized at the base by abundant oyster beds or by hippurite limestone (Cenoman-Turon).

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 9: Laprade-Mass Liturgy 1840-1916 1913

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