"devil's finger" meaning in All languages combined

See devil's finger on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: devil's fingers [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} devil's finger (plural devil's fingers)
  1. A belemnite, any of various extinct species of cephalopod in the order Belemnitida.
    Sense id: en-devil's_finger-en-noun-exwFRfIZ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 91 9 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 91 9 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 94 6
  2. The fossil remains of such a cephalopod. Synonyms: fingerstone
    Sense id: en-devil's_finger-en-noun-vLD8BIn9

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "devil's fingers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "devil's finger (plural devil's fingers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "91 9",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "91 9",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "94 6",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A belemnite, any of various extinct species of cephalopod in the order Belemnitida."
      ],
      "id": "en-devil's_finger-en-noun-exwFRfIZ",
      "links": [
        [
          "belemnite",
          "belemnite"
        ],
        [
          "extinct",
          "extinct"
        ],
        [
          "cephalopod",
          "cephalopod"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1811, James Parkinson, Organic Remains of a Former World, page 122:",
          "text": "LXXVI. Belemnites, a conical or fusiform stone, of brown radiating spar, […] Various names have been assigned to this fossil; many of which, derived from the ridiculous notions entertained by the vulgar, in the early ages, need only be mentioned. Such are, devil’s fingers, Spectrorum candela, and idæus dactylus, from their having somewhat the form of fingers",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 February 12, “Fossils: myths, mystery and magic”, in Belfast Telegraph, page 1:",
          "text": "In the Middle Ages, when fields in the Norfolk chalk and Oxford clay outcrops of England were ploughed, they would appear after a thunderstorm. The myth soon emerged that they were thunderbolts. It is more likely that the heavy downpour had washed away the surrounding soil to reveal the fossils. Belemnites are also known as St Peter’s fingers, devil’s fingers and ghostly candles.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 December 4, Ruth Campbell, “Out & about – Whitby's fossil hunter”, in Northern Echo, Darlington, England:",
          "text": "Bivalves, a type of Jurassic oyster, are known as ‘devil’s toenails’ and the bullet shaped belemnites, which look like dinosaur teeth and are the remains of a creature resembling a cuttlefish, are, locally, called ‘devil’s fingers’.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The fossil remains of such a cephalopod."
      ],
      "id": "en-devil's_finger-en-noun-vLD8BIn9",
      "links": [
        [
          "fossil",
          "fossil"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fingerstone"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Belemnitida",
    "Gonioteuthis"
  ],
  "word": "devil's finger"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "devil's fingers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "devil's finger (plural devil's fingers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "Entries using missing taxonomic name (order)"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A belemnite, any of various extinct species of cephalopod in the order Belemnitida."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "belemnite",
          "belemnite"
        ],
        [
          "extinct",
          "extinct"
        ],
        [
          "cephalopod",
          "cephalopod"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1811, James Parkinson, Organic Remains of a Former World, page 122:",
          "text": "LXXVI. Belemnites, a conical or fusiform stone, of brown radiating spar, […] Various names have been assigned to this fossil; many of which, derived from the ridiculous notions entertained by the vulgar, in the early ages, need only be mentioned. Such are, devil’s fingers, Spectrorum candela, and idæus dactylus, from their having somewhat the form of fingers",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 February 12, “Fossils: myths, mystery and magic”, in Belfast Telegraph, page 1:",
          "text": "In the Middle Ages, when fields in the Norfolk chalk and Oxford clay outcrops of England were ploughed, they would appear after a thunderstorm. The myth soon emerged that they were thunderbolts. It is more likely that the heavy downpour had washed away the surrounding soil to reveal the fossils. Belemnites are also known as St Peter’s fingers, devil’s fingers and ghostly candles.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 December 4, Ruth Campbell, “Out & about – Whitby's fossil hunter”, in Northern Echo, Darlington, England:",
          "text": "Bivalves, a type of Jurassic oyster, are known as ‘devil’s toenails’ and the bullet shaped belemnites, which look like dinosaur teeth and are the remains of a creature resembling a cuttlefish, are, locally, called ‘devil’s fingers’.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The fossil remains of such a cephalopod."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "fossil",
          "fossil"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fingerstone"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Belemnitida",
    "Gonioteuthis"
  ],
  "word": "devil's finger"
}

Download raw JSONL data for devil's finger meaning in All languages combined (2.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.