Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun an extinct primitive toothed bird (
Archaeopteryx lithographica ) of the Upper Jurassic having a long feathered tail and hollow bones; usually considered the most primitive of all known birds. Same asarchaeopteryx .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun extinct primitive toothed bird of the Jurassic period having a long feathered tail and hollow bones; usually considered the most primitive of all birds
Etymologies
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Examples
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One persistent archeopteryx in particular kept attacking their provisions in hopes of stealing one of the smaller brightly wrapped packages of food.
A Triumph of Souls Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 2000
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[56] The archeopteryx of the oolite has the true carinate shoulder structure.
On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart
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This was the archeopteryx, which had feathers like a real bird and yet had teeth in its mouth like the lizard when it lived on earth.
Socialism: Positive and Negative Robert Rives La Monte
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Every navigator brought home tidings of new species of animals and of races of men living in parts of the world where the theologians, relying on the statement of St. Paul that the gospel had gone into all lands, had for ages declared there could be none; until finally it overtaxed even the theological imagination to conceive of angels, in obedience to the divine command, distributing the various animals over the earth, dropping the megatherium in South America, the archeopteryx in Europe, the ornithorhynchus in Australia, and the opossum in North America.
A History of the warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom 1896
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