Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A large, coin-shaped, fossil foraminifer of the genus Nummulites, widely distributed in limestone formations from the Eocene Epoch to the Miocene Epoch of the Cenozoic.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A member of the genus Nummulites or family Nummulitidæ: used in a broad sense, generally in the plural, for a fossil nummuline shell of almost any kind.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Paleon.) A fossil of the genus Nummulites and allied genera.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
protozoan from theTertiary period, known only asfossils
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun large fossil protozoan of the Tertiary period
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The nummulite rock, in the vicinity of those monuments, frequently presents a conglomerate of testacea imbedded in it, which, in some positions, resemble small seeds; and Strabo imagines they were the petrified residue of the lentils brought there by the workmen, from their having been the ordinary food of the laboring classes, and of all the lower orders of Egyptians.
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Here and there, at Carmel and Gerizim, patches of the tertiary nummulite of
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This limestone wave was shown to be one of a great series, running parallel with the Alps, and constituting an undulatory district, chiefly composed of chalk beds, separated from the higher limestone district of the Jura and Lias by a long trench or moat, filled with members of the tertiary series -- chiefly nummulite limestones and flysch.
On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature John Ruskin 1859
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Amongst the materials I found a fine yellow sandstone-grit and a nummulite so weathered that the shells stood out in strong relief.
To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II A Personal Narrative Richard Francis Burton 1855
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Haines.] who have pronounced the species collected by Dr. Thomson and myself to be the same as those found in the nummulite rocks of north-west India, Scinde, and Arabia.
chained_bear commented on the word nummulite
"A fossil or extant foraminiferan of the genus Nummulites (now sometimes included in the genus Camerina) or a related genus, having a calcareous skeleton typically in the form of a flat spiral resembling a disc, and numerous in certain Tertiary strata." (OED) See also nummuline and nummulitid. And she's wonderful list of Nummulated foodstuffs!
September 8, 2008