fossil
/ˈfɑsl̩/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.99 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The mineralized remains of an animal or plant.
noun
Any preserved evidence of ancient life, including shells, imprints, burrows, coprolites, and organically-produced chemicals.
noun
A fossil word.
noun
A piece of content, which, despite its age, is being repromoted to a large volume of users by the algorithm.
Colloquial
name
A small city, the county seat of Wheeler County, Oregon, United States.
Example Sentences
- "With the permission of the Keeper of the fossil collection, therefore, the specimen was subjected to a further careful removal of the matrix in the requisite directions."
- "Within the Hepaticae two types of fossils can be distinguished: those with sufficient characters to assign them to an order and those with more obscure characters."
- "He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record."
- "You know what, we’ve got a limited number of heartbeats in this world so if you’re only truly happy researching fossils and can make it work for you, you go for it."
- "I do not want to convey any disrespectful notion or slight when I call those good and learned men fossils, but my experience is that people are apt to fossilise even at a University if they follow the same paths too persistently."
- "All at once there was a tapping at the window pane. Atherton was staring at us from without. He shouted through the glass, ‘Come out of that, you fossils! — I’ve news for you!’"
Etymology
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: fossile, fossilis
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈfɑsl̩/
- British English: /ˈfɒsl̩/