hinge

en-verb

hinge (third-person singular simple present hinges, present participle hinging or hingeing, simple past and past participle hinged)

hinges (present singular third-person)
hinging (participle present)
hingeing (participle present)
hinged (participle past)
hinged (past)

From Middle English henge, from Old English *henġ (“hinge”), compare Old English henġe- in henġeclif (“overhanging cliff”), Old English henġen (“hanging; that upon which a thing is hung”), from Proto-West Germanic *hangiju. Akin to Scots heenge (“hinge”), Saterland Frisian Hänge (“hinge”), Dutch heng (“door handle”), Low German henge (“a hook, hinge, handle”), Middle Dutch henghe, hanghe (“a hook, hinge, handle”), Scots hingel (“any attachment by which something is hung or fastened”), Dutch hengel (“hook”), geheng (“hinge”), hengsel (“handle”), Danish hængsel (“hinge”), dialectal German Hängel (“hook, joint”), German Henkel (“handle, hook”), Old English hōn (“to hang”), hangian (“to cause to hang, hang up”). More at hang.

cog

The flake hinged at an inclusion in the core.

(transitive, archaeology) The breaking off of the distal end of a knapped stone flake whose presumed course across the face of the stone core was truncated prematurely, leaving not a feathered distal end but instead the scar of a nearly perpendicular break.


artifact

artifacts (plural)
artefact (alternative)

Alteration of artefact, from Italian artefatto, from Latin arte (“by skill”) (ablative of ars (“art”)) + factum (“thing made”) (from facio (“to make, do”)).

The dig produced many Roman artifacts.

Holy shit! It is fascinating when a country’s culture seeps even into their math lessons, although it’s not really surprising. As a British child, our math questions were “if Johnny has two artifacts and Dinesh has two artifacts, then how many artifacts is Johnny about to have?” The answer, of course, “all the artifacts, Dinesh’s family can come visit them in a British museum whenever they’re in town.”

2017, Tim Carvell [et al.], “North Korea”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 4, episode 21, John Oliver (actor), Warner Bros. Television, via HBO:

(archaeology) An object, such as a tool, ornament, or weapon of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation.


Dresden

Borrowed from German Dresden (“Dresden”) in the 1730s, from Middle High German Dresden, from a Sorbian source akin to Lower Sorbian Drježdźany, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *dręzga, of which the locative case is *dręzdzě.

The actual total hardly matters: if Dresden was indeed a war crime, just one death would make it so.

2001 July 23, Robin Neillands, The Bomber War: The Allied Air Offensive Against Nazi Germany, Barnes & Noble, Incorporated, →ISBN, page 358:

‘Father, you saw the papers, when Dresden happened. You see the papers today. People are seeing the cost of this, truly. Now that we know the consequences, countries will not use it.’

2017, John Theobald, A Kingdom Falls, Head of Zeus Ltd., →ISBN, page 314:

(history, metonymic) The Bombing of Dresden.


bugbear

bugbears (plural)
bug-bear (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-bugbear.wav

From obsolete meaning of bug (“something terrifying”) + bear. See Middle English bugge, modern bogey.

Ha, ha: alas poore wretch: a poore Chipochia, haſt not ſlept to night? would he not (a naughty man) let it ſleepe: a bug-beare take him.

c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:

“How could you lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the ‘poor child’? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door-stones?[…]”

1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XXII, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:

"My young friends," quietly replied Jason, "I do not wonder that you think the dragon very terrible. You have grown up from infancy in the fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that children feel for the bugbears and hobgoblins which their nurses have talked to them about.[…]"

1853, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Golden Fleece”, in Tanglewood Tales:

The partisans of the Administration object to the word “imperialism,” calling it a mere bugbear having no real existence.

1900, Carl Schurz, For Truth, Justice and Liberty:

(folklore, fantasy) A generic creature, often described as a large goblin, meant to inspire fear in children.


kasha

(folklore) A yokai that steals the corpses of those who have died as a result of accumulating evil deeds.


megalith

PIE word
 *méǵh₂s
From mega- (prefix meaning ‘very large, great’) + -lith (suffix meaning ‘stone’), a back-formation from megalithic probably modelled after monolith. from Ancient Greek λίθος (líthos, “stone”)

confix

A large stone slab making up a prehistoric monument, or part of such a monument.

megaliet

A prehistoric monument made up of one or more large stones.


mia

(classical studies) An ancient bluffing game played with dice.


leprechaun

leprechauns (plural)
lepracaun (alternative)

→ German: Leprechaun

desc

→ Italian: leprecauno, leprechaun (unadapted), leprecano, lepricauno

→ Japanese: レプラコーン (repurakōn)

→ Korean: 레프러콘 (repeureokon)

→ Portuguese: leprechaun

→ Russian: лепреко́н (leprekón)

→ Spanish: leprechaun

/ˈlɛpɹəkɔːn/

/ˈlɛpɹəˌkɔn/

/ˈlɛpɹəˌkɑn/

From Irish leipreachán, luprachán, from Middle Irish luchrupán, from Old Irish luchorpán. See also Irish lucharachán.
The word's further etymology is disputed; it is traditionally explained as a compound containing lú (“small”, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lengʷʰ-) + corp (“body”, which is from Latin corpus). However, an alternative suggestion is that it is a derivative of Latin Lupercī (“priests of Lupercus”), who were misinterpreted as an antediluvian species by medieval Irish scholars.

af

from Proto-Indo-European <i class="Latn mention" lang="ine-pro">*h₁lengʷʰ-</i>

which is from Latin <i class="Latn mention" lang="la">corpus</i>

Do you not catch the tiny clamour, / Busy click of an elfin hammer, / Voice of the leprechaun singing shrill, / As he merrily plies his trade?

1888, William Allingham, “The Lepracaun; or Fairy Shoemaker”, in William Butler Yeats, editor, Irish Fairy and Folk Tales, pages 86–87:

(Irish folklore) One of a race of elves that can reveal hidden treasure to those who catch them.

（愛爾蘭民間傳說裡的）短妖精 /（爱尔兰民间传说里的）短妖精

[Àiěrlán mínjiān chuánshuō lǐ de] duǎn yāojing


impetus

Borrowed from Latin impetus (“a rushing upon, an attack, assault, onset”), from impetō (“to rush upon, attack”), from in- (“upon”) + petō (“to seek, fall upon”).

bor

(history, medieval physics) A principle of motive force, held as equivalent to weight times velocity by John Buridan, in an auxiliary theory of Aristotelian dynamics introduced by John Philoponus, describing projectile motion against gravity as linear until it transitions to a vertical drop and the intellectual precursor to the concepts of inertia, momentum and acceleration in classical mechanics.


lanceolate

en-adj

lanceolate (comparative more lanceolate, superlative most lanceolate)

more lanceolate (comparative)
most lanceolate (superlative)
lanceolated (alternative)

The stone tools in these levels include Still Bay points, beautifully shaped thin lanceolate spear points, flaked on both sides.

2011, Chris Stringer, The Origin of Our Species, Penguin, published 2012, page 127:

(archaeology) Of a class of knapped stone points, made without a stem, shoulders, notches, or other features that aid in attachment to a shaft.


knap

en-verb

knap (third-person singular simple present knaps, present participle knapping, simple past and past participle knapped)

knaps (present singular third-person)
knapping (participle present)
knapped (participle past)
knapped (past)
knap (infinitive)
knap (first-person present singular)
knapped (first-person past singular)
knap (present second-person singular)
knappest (archaic present second-person singular)
knapped (past second-person singular)
knappedst (archaic past second-person singular)
knaps (present singular third-person)
knappeth (archaic present singular third-person)
knapped (past singular third-person)
knap (plural present)
knapped (past plural)
knap (present subjunctive)
knapped (past subjunctive)
knap (imperative present)
knapping (participle present)
knapped (participle past)

The verb is derived from Late Middle English knappen (“to strike (something)”); further etymology uncertain, probably related to Middle Dutch knappen, cnappen (“to break (something) with a sharp sound, snap; to crack or crackle”) (modern Dutch knappen), probably ultimately onomatopoeic.
The noun is derived from Late Middle English knap, knappe (“sharp blow, strike”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from the verb (see above), or related to an ancestor of Danish knep and Swedish knäpp (“a flick, rap, snap”), probably ultimately onomatopoeic.

napauttaa

(transitive) to say (something) crisply or sharply; (intransitive) to speak crisply or sharply

An average workman will knap 3,000 flints in a day of 12 hours, but a good one will make 4,000 at a pinch.

1879, Sydney B. J. Skertchly, “Manufacture of Gun-flints”, in On the Manufacture of Gun-flints, the Methods of Excavating for Flint, the Age of Palæolithic Man, and the Connexion between Neolithic Art and the Gun-flint Trade (Memoirs of the Geological Survey, England and Wales), London: […] Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, and sold by Longman & Co., […], →OCLC, page 33:

After every five or six shots, check the flint and tighten the jaws, if the flint has shifted. After twenty shots, flip the flint and dry fire the gun. This should knap the edge [of the flint].

1996 November, Lionel Atwill, “The Flash of Flint on Steel”, in Duncan Barnes, editor, Field & Stream, east edition, volume CI, number 7, New York, N.Y.: Times Mirror Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 48, column 2:

Not all chert and non-chert materials are amenable to knapping. […] Because a knapper removes flakes by loading force into a small area of the target core, materials that contain many inclusions or are coarse-grained are difficult to knap – the inclusions deflect energy producing irregular results.

1998 January, Anthony Tolonen, Laura Clifford, “Appendix F: Phase I Cultural Resource Report: Proposed Charlotte-Douglas International Airport Expansion, Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina [Method]”, in Environmental Impact Statement: Charlotte/Douglas International Airport: Appendices F–J (Project E&A-004), volume I (Technical Report), page 39:

[O]ne knapper, who was very skilled and, therefore, presumed to be an adult, made highly standardized prismatic blades. These blades were widely distributed for use throughout the site – in fact, only 10 of the 50 blades and bladelets this individual crafted were found where they were knapped.

2021, April Nowell, “Stone Tools, Skill Acquisition and Learning a Craft”, in Growing Up in the Ice Age: Fossil and Archaeological Evidence of the Lived Lives of Plio-Pleistocene Children, Oxford, Oxfordshire; Havertown, Pa.: Oxbow Books, →ISBN, page 84:

To break (something) into small pieces with a cracking sound; to fragment, to smash; also, to break (something) apart sharply; to snap.

(specifically, especially archaeology) To break away flakes from (a brittle material which fractures conchoidally (“with planar concentric curves”), usually a mineral such as chert, flint, or obsidian), often to form a tool with a sharp edge or point.

lohkoa

to break away flakes from (a brittle material), often to form a tool with a sharp edge or point


heterochronous

en-adj

heterochronous (comparative more heterochronous, superlative most heterochronous)

more heterochronous (comparative)
most heterochronous (superlative)

(paleontology) formed at different periods


orthostat

en-noun

orthostat (plural orthostats or orthostates)

orthostats (plural)
orthostates (plural)
orthostate (alternative)

Ancient Greek ὀρθοστάτης (orthostátēs, “upright shaft”); analysable as ortho- + -stat.

der

Near-synonyms: menhir, standing stone

(archaeology) An upright stone or slab, especially one which is part of a larger structure.


recumbent

From Latin present participle recumbēns, from recumbō (“I recline”).

recumbent stone circle
recumbent stone circle

(archaeology) A large rectangular monolith lying on its side, typically flanked by two large upright stones, the flankers; found in recumbent stone circles of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and the counties of Cork and Kerry in south-west of Ireland.


kourotrophos

Presumably from Kourotrophos, itself from Ancient Greek κουροτρόφος (kourotróphos). Assigned by Elizabeth B. French, c. 1970

(archaeology) Any of a class of Mycenaean terracotta figurines depicting women carrying children.


settlement

en-noun

settlement (countable and uncountable, plural settlements)

(archaeology) A site where people used to live together in ancient times; an ancient simple kind of village.


cordate

Leaf shape
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Willard Van Orman Quine

From the substantivation of the above adjective, alternatively straight from Latin cord- (“heart”) + -ate (noun-forming suffix).

af

The upper loam (E) has been reported to have yielded several white-patinated implements, including a large number of pointed handaxes, cordates, ovates and cleavers.

1977, D. K. Bhattacharya, Dibyendu Kanti Bhattacharya, Palaeolithic Europe, page 46:

Of the 58 ovates, cordates and cleavers examined, 21 have a tranchet sharpened edge, and 14 are twisted.

1985, John Wymer, The Palaeolithic Sites of East Anglia, page 107:

Slightly derived handaxes from the Mildenhall glaciofluvial sands, generally in fresh condition and dominated by ovates and cordates.

2012, Paul Pettitt, Mark White, The British Palaeolithic, page 122:


entrench

en-verb

entrench (third-person singular simple present entrenches, present participle entrenching, simple past and past participle entrenched)

entrenches (present singular third-person)
entrenching (participle present)
entrenched (participle past)
entrenched (past)
intrench (alternative archaic)

/ɪnˈtɹɛnt͡ʃ/

/ɛnˈtɹɛnt͡ʃ/

/ɛnˈtɹɛnt͡ʃ/

From en- + trench. First attested in the 1550s.

(literally) To cut in; to furrow; to make trenches in or upon.

(construction, archaeology) To dig or excavate a trench; to trench.


Bronze Age

the Bronze Age (canonical)
bronze age (alternative)

(archaeology) A period in a civilization's development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze.


ware

en-noun

ware (usually uncountable, plural wares)

From Middle English ware, from Old English waru, from Proto-West Germanic *waru, from Proto-Germanic *warō (“attention”) as in beware, in the sense of “an object of care, a valuable”, from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to watch, keep guard”), whence also ward. Cognate with Dutch waar (“goods offered for sale or use”) and Swedish vara, with the same meaning.

cog

(countable, archaeology) A style or genre of artifact.


rugose

en-adj

rugose (comparative more rugose, superlative most rugose)

more rugose (comparative)
most rugose (superlative)

(paleontology) Describing a fossil coral of the extinct order †Rugosa (also called Tetracoralla), this order has horn-shaped corals with surfaces covered with ridges.


tabulate

Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano

Back-formation from Tabulata (“an extinct order of corals”) on the basis
of -ate (adjective-forming suffix, corresponding to Latin -ātus (forming participles), itself seen in Tabulata), from Latin tabulāta, the nominative neuter plural of tabulātus (“floored”). See further at etymology 1. The order is so named because the corals are characterized by their well-developed horizontal internal partitions (tabulae). Equivalent to tabula + -ate (adjective-forming suffix).

af

adjective-forming suffix, corresponding to Latin <i class="Latn mention" lang="la">-ātus</i> (forming participles), itself seen in
Tabulata

[W]e find the Zoantharia, in section (1), divided into tabulate and non-tabulate corals. The specimen before us is evidently tabulate, and we therefore follow the reference to section (2), where we find the tabulate corals divided into those with and those without cœnenchyma.

1865, Samuel Haughton, “Lecture VIII”, in Manual of Geology (Galbraith and Haughton’s Scientific Manuals, Experimental and Natural Science Series), London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, →OCLC, page 192:

On the Zoological Affinities of the Tabulate Corals; by Prof. A. E. Verrill.—The questions discussed in this paper were the position of the tabulate corals among Polyps, and the true value of the tabulate structure in classification. […] Prof. [Addison Emery] Verrill, therefore, concludes that the tabulate structure is of secondary importance as a character, in fixing their affinities, and that the Tabulata must be dismembered,—Halisites, Millepora, and their allies, being classed as Hydroids; and Pocillopora and Favosites with other extinct tabulated genera, as true Polyps.

1868 January, “American Association for the Advancement of Science”, in David A. P. Watt, editor, The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist: A Bi-monthly Journal of Natural Science, Conducted by a Committee of the Natural History Society of Montreal (Second Series), volume III, number 4, Montreal, Que.: Dawson Brothers, Great St. James Street, →OCLC, pages 294–295:

The large corallites are tabulate, with indistinctly differentiated walls, provided with obtusely triangular and irregular septa, and having their visceral cavities more or less freely connected with one another by lateral horizontal channels, which penetrate the interstitial tubular tissue.

1879, H[enry] Alleyne Nicholson, “Thecidæ and Helioporidæ”, in On the Structure and Affinities of the “Tabulate Corals” of the Palæozoic Period: With Critical Descriptions of Illustrative Species, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 236:

(paleontology) Describing a member of an extinct order of corals, the Tabulata: having tabulae (well-developed horizontal internal partitions within each cell).


tabulate

From a substantivation of the former adjective through the associated taxon's name (Tabulata). Equivalent to tabula + -ate (forms nouns meaning "specimen of a corresponding taxon ending in -ata")

forms nouns meaning "specimen of a corresponding taxon ending in <i class="Latn mention" lang="mul">-ata</i>"

Both tabulates and rugosans evolved independently as part of the Ordovician Radiation; the tabulates appeared first in the Early Ordovician (~488 Mya), followed by rugosans about 20 My later.

2013, Walter M. Goldberg, “A Brief History of Reefs and Corals”, in The Biology of Reefs and Reef Organisms, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, section 13-2 (An Introduction to Paleozoic Corals), page 272, column 2:

(paleontology) A member of the order Tabulata.


Asiatic

Learned borrowing from Latin āsiāticus; equivalent to Asia + -atic.

(Egyptology) One of the people of ancient Canaan, Syria, or Mesopotamia; a Semite.


fossil

From French fossile, from Latin fossilis (“something which has been dug up”), from fodio (“I dig up”).

der

He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.

2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 2012-02-13, page 162:

(paleontology) Any preserved evidence of ancient life, including shells, imprints, burrows, coprolites, and organically-produced chemicals.

фосил

paleontology: any preserved evidence of ancient life


shojo

ja-r

猩々(しょうじょう) (shōjō)

(folklore) A creature in Japanese folklore, often depicted as a sea spirit with red hair and a fondness for alcohol.


Weimar Republic

From the name of the German city Weimar + republic.

(history) The democratic regime of Germany from 1919 to the assumption of power by Adolf Hitler in 1933.


heliocentrism

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-heliocentrism.wav

Shortened from heliocentricism, from heliocentric + -ism, from Ancient Greek ἥλῐος (hḗlĭos, “sun”) + κέντρον (kéntron, “centre”), equivalent to helio- + -centrism.

1923, Felix Adler, "The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal," American Ethical Union, 68.
Geocentrism has been displaced by heliocentrism. Heliocentrism, in turn, the claim of the sun, surrounded by its satellites, to a sovereign place in the heavens, has become ridiculous in the face of the wilderness of suns that people the abysses beyond us.

It wasn't until the Renaissance that scientists such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei showed proof for heliocentrism, or the idea that the planets moved around the sun.

2019, Elizabeth Howell, “PBS Series Takes Astronomy Buffs Back in Time With ‘Ancient Skies’”, in Space.com:

(astronomy, history) The theory that the sun is the center of the universe.

heliosentrisme

the theory that the sun is the center of the universe


Silurian

en-adj

Silurian (comparative more Silurian, superlative most Silurian)

more Silurian (comparative)
most Silurian (superlative)

(archaeology) Of or related to the Silures, a pre-Roman British tribe.


geminatio vocalium

Borrowed from Latin geminatio vocalium (“doubling of vowels”).

bor

The least-used method is geminatio vocalium, as in Oscan and (occasionally) Umbrian: PAASTORES.

2008, Andrew L Sihler, New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin:

(epigraphy) The process of indicating that a vowel is pronounced long by writing it twice, especially as was sometimes done in Latin due to influence from Oscan.


tied

en-adj

tied (comparative more tied, superlative most tied)

more tied (comparative)
most tied (superlative)

Southern US, African-American Vernacular

(archaeology) Having walls that are connected in a few places by a single stone overlapping from one wall to another.


Stone Age

the Stone Age (canonical)
stone-age (alternative)

Holonym: prehistory

Meronyms: Old Stone Age, Paleolithic; Mesolithic; New Stone Age, Neolithic; Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B; Chalcolithic, Cyprolithic, Copper Age

(archaeology, paleontology) A broad prehistoric period during which humans widely used stone for toolmaking.


brittle

brittle (comparative brittler or more brittle, superlative brittlest or most brittle)

brittler (comparative)
more brittle (comparative)
brittlest (superlative)
most brittle (superlative)

From Middle English britel, brutel, brotel (“brittle”), from Old English *brytel, *bryttol (“brittle, fragile”, literally “prone to or tending to break”); equivalent to brit + -le.

(archaeology) Said of rocks and minerals with a conchoidal fracture; capable of being knapped or flaked.


modernity

en-noun

modernity (countable and uncountable, plural modernities)

Borrowed from Latin modernitās or modern + -ity.

(history) Quality of being of the modern period of contemporary historiography.


sorcerer

sorcerers (plural)
sorceror (alternative)

/ˈsɔːsəɹə(ɹ)/

From Middle English sorcerere, from Old French sorcier, from Early Medieval Latin sortiārius, derived from Latin sortem (“fate, fortune”), from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind”).

Pope Joan, who once occupied the throne of the Vatican, was reputed to be the blackest sorcerer of them all.

1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 105:

"Well, sorcerer?" growled the Norman. "Nay, not well," replied Catweazle shivering miserably, "I have the bone-ache."

1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 7:

(mythology, folklore, fantasy) A magician or wizard. Sometimes specifically male.

yshtës

magician/wizard drawing upon natural powers


Bloody Mary

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Bloody Mary.wav

(folklore) A ghost, witch or demonic spirit said to appear in a mirror if her name is chanted repeatedly.


Dev

(Irish history) Abbreviation of Éamon de Valera, former president of Ireland.


E

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 鄂 (È).

The discovery suggests also that the center of the state of E was located in the Suizao corridor in Hubei, not far from the location of E as suggested by ancient geographical works.

2002, The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 229:

These three bronzes, though clearly modeled on Zhou types, are quite distinctive from the Zhou tradition. They suggest that, although the state of E served as an ally and agent of the Western Zhou state, it probably had a distinctive cultural origin of its own.

2006, Li Feng, Landscape and Power in Early China, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 330–331:

A six-character inscription cast inside the bowl records that this gui was made for a nobleman of the E state. Due to gaps in Chinese historical records, the exact history of the state of E is uncertain. Since the E Shu Gui was salvaged from a pile of scrap copper shipped to the Shanghai Foundry from Hubei province, some scholars have inferred that the gui was excavated from Hubei, therefore proving that the E state during the Western Zhou was located in today's Hubei province.

2014, Liu Yang, Cast for Eternity, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 15:

(history) A state in ancient China of varying location in present-day Shanxi, Henan, and Hubei.

(history) Its capital, also known as Echeng and Ezhou.


Geat

From Old English Ġēat, from Proto-West Germanic *Gaut, from Proto-Germanic *gautaz (“Geat”).

(history) A member of a North Germanic tribe formerly occupying what is now Götaland in Sweden.


Han

Atonal form of the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 邗 (Hán).

(history) A former city in Huai'an, Jiangsu, China

(history) A former state in Jiangsu, China under the Zhou dynasty

(history) A canal in Jiangsu, China, connecting Hancheng (now Yangzhou) on the Yangtze with Mokou (now Huai'an) on the Huai.

邗溝 /邗沟

canal in Jiangsu, now mostly part of the Grand Canal


Ottoman

Borrowed from Middle French Ottoman (“Osman”), from Italian Ottomano (“Osman”), from Ottoman Turkish عثمان, from Arabic عُثْمَان (ʕuṯmān, male given name). Doublet of Osman and Uthman.

der

Otoman (alternative archaic)
Othoman (alternative archaic)

In the beginning of this yere Sulton Solyman Pac called yͤ great Turke which was but the. viii. of the ligne of Ottoman, the firſt that toke vpō hym to be a great capitain or ruler […]

1550, The Vnion of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke:

Ottoman the firſte Emperour of this Turkiſhe nation, […]

1560, A Famous Cronicle of Oure Time, Called Sleidanes Commentaries:

In the Firſt Place are Conditores Imperiorum; Founders of States, and Common-Wealths: Such as were Romulus, Cyrus, Cæſar, Ottoman, Iſmael.

1625, Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, pages 313–314:

It is unqueſtionable, that about the year 1300 upon Aladin’s Death, Ottoman was an abſolute Soveraign […]

1689, Drue Cressener, The Judgments of God Upon the Roman-Catholick Church, page 128:

OTTOMAN the Son of Ethrogul the Son of Solyman (who was drove out of Perſia by the Tartars) was about A.D. 1290 ſaluted with the Title of Governor of the Oguzian Turks in Aſia […]

1737, Benj. Martin, Bibliotheca Technologica: or, a Philological Library of Literary Arts and Sciences, page 396:

Ottoman, notwithſtanding this Succeſs, thought fit to agree to a Truce with the Chriſtians […]

1751, A General History of the Several Nations of the World, page 123:

Archaic form of Osman, the name borne by

Osman I (d. 1323/4), founder of the Ottoman Empire.

And in the year 1618. (when Ottoman the ſecond (who ſucceeded his Uncle Muſtapha) was unſuccessful in his war againſt Poland, and was therefore ſlain by his Janizaries) […]

1664, John Gadbury, Dies novissimus, page 36:

After theſe reign'd […] Ottoman II. ſtrangled by the Janizaries, […]

1701, “TURKS”, in The Great Historical, Geographical, Genealogical and Poetical Dictionary:

Oſman, or Ottoman II, […]

1759, The Universal Traveller, page 458:

Osman II (1604–1622), sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1618 until his death.

Ottoman III.

1781, J. S. Charrier, A New Description of Europe, table 31, page 3:

[…] the reign of Ottoman III (reigned 1754–57) after the death of Mahmut I.

2004, Atsuyuki Okabe, Islamic Area Studies with Geographical Information Systems, page 170:

Osman III (1699–1757), sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1754 until his death.


Ottoman

Ottomans (plural)
Otoman (alternative archaic)
Othoman (alternative archaic)

[…] the Ottomans were a dynasty like every other, subject to the same laws of the rise and fall of states.

2006, Robert Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality, page 243:

Nearly 250,000 Ottomans of various military ranks were taken captive by the Allied forces during World War I, which was referred to in Turkish variously as Büyük Harp, Cihan Harbi and Harb-i Umumi (or simply Seferberlik among the older generation of Turks) until World War II.

2002, Yücel Yanikdağ, “Marginal men: Ottoman prisoners of war in the Great War”, in The Turkish Studies Association Journal, volume 26, number 2, →JSTOR, pages 39–46:

(in particular) An ethnic Turk of the Ottoman Empire.

A citizen of the Ottoman Empire.
An ethnic Turk of the Ottoman Empire.


Ottoman

osman

of or relating to the Ottoman dynasty or the Ottoman Empire

Of or relating to the Ottoman dynasty or the Ottoman Empire.

(in particular) Of or relating to the ethnic Turks of the Ottoman Empire.


Ottoman

[…] translated into Ottoman by a certain Mehmed Efendi […]

[…] translated from Ottoman into Greek […]

2009, Islamic Education in Europe, page 157:

[…] translated from Ottoman into Persian […]

2024, The History of Translation and Translators in the Ottoman Empire, page 60:


P

(biblical, history) Abbreviation of Priestly source.


Prohibition

(history) Any of several periods during which the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages were restricted or illegal.

(US) The period from 17 January 1920 through 5 December 1933 in the United States, between the effective dates of the Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments to the United States Constitution.


Roman

en-adj

Roman (comparative more Roman, superlative most Roman)

more Roman (comparative)
most Roman (superlative)

From Old French Romain, from Latin Rōmānus. In reference to the Byzantine Empire, via the Byzantine Greek endonym Ῥωμαῖος (Rhōmaîos). By surface analysis, Rome + -an. Doublet of Romano.

(historical, historiography) Of or from the Byzantine Empire.


Roman

Kars was the capital of the small Armenian kingdom of Vanand, ruled by Gagik (the same name as the sovereign of Ani) from 1029 to 1064, when he surrendered his kingdom to the Romans. In 1053 it was taken by the Seljoukids, probably under the command of Qutlumus...

2010, John Wortley trans. John Skylitzes as A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057, p. 442, n. 192

(historical, historiography) A native or resident of the Byzantine Empire.


Te

From Coptic ⲧⲏ (tē), from Egyptian d-wA-t:dwAt (“dwꜣt”). Doublet of Duat.

der

<i class="Latn mention" lang="egy">dwꜣt</i>

(Egyptology, Egyptian mythology) The realm of the dead in Egyptian mythology.


Terror

Proper noun form of terror. Translation of French Terreur, as coined by the Thermidorian Reaction

(politics, history, usually with the) The Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

(politics, history, usually with the) Any specific one of several historical reigns of terror.


shuck

(European folklore) A supernatural and generally malevolent black dog in English folklore.


rounds

(campanology) A descending diatonic scale played on a ring of bells.


PT

(Egyptology) Initialism of Pyramid Texts.


OCD

Oxford Classical Dictionary
w:Oxford Classical Dictionary

(publishing, history) Initialism of Oxford Classical Dictionary.


BST

en-noun

BST (countable and uncountable, plural BSTs)

(paleontology) Initialism of Burgess Shale Type.


literal

literals (plural)
litteral (alternative obsolete)
lit. (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-literal.wav

From Middle English literal, from Old French literal, from Late Latin litteralis, also literalis (“of or pertaining to letters or to writing”), from Latin littera, litera (“a letter”); see letter.

(epigraphy, typography) A misprint (or occasionally a scribal error) that affects a letter.


hoard

From Middle English hord, from Old English hord (“an accumulation of valuable objects cached for preservation or future use; treasure; hoard”), from Proto-West Germanic *hoʀd, from Proto-Germanic *huzdą (“treasure; hoard”), of unknown origin, but possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *kewdʰ- (“to conceal, hide”), thus meaning “something hidden”. Cognate with German Hort (“hoard; refuge”), Icelandic hodd (“treasure”), Latin cū̆stōs (“guard; keeper”). For the meaning development compare Russian сокро́вище (sokróvišče, “treasure”) related to Russian скрыва́ть (skryvátʹ, “to hide, to conceal”).

m+

non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger

(archaeology) A cache of valuable objects or artefacts; a trove.


bulla

Borrowed from Latin bulla (“bubble”). Doublet of bill and bull (“papal bull; bubble”).

doublet

(archaeology) A clay envelope or hollow ball, typically with seal impressions or writing on its outside indicating its contents.


Age of Enlightenment

(history) A period of time ranging from part of the 17th century through much of the 18th century, characterized particularly by the importance of logic and reason.


wheelhouse

wheelhouses (plural)
wheel house (alternative)
wheel-house (alternative)

From wheel + house. Sense 3 (“(baseball) a pitch location which is favourable to the hitter”) references the fact that a vessel is controlled from its wheelhouse (sense 1.2), and sense 4 (“a person’s area of authority or expertise”) is a figurative use of sense 3.

Most Celtic houses in Britain were simply constructed. They were generally round as in the remains of the house at Little Woodbury in Wiltshire, the wheelhouse at Jarlshof in Shetland, or the house on an unenclosed platform at Greenknowe in Berwickshire. [...] The roof of the Greenknowe house was conical. It had rafters fanning outwards from a high top, like the spokes of an umbrella. You can see why it is called a wheelhouse. The rafters were held at their lower ends on a horizontal ring of timber that rested on vertical posts with Y-shaped tops.

1982, Peter Somerset Fry, Fiona Somerset Fry, “Celts, Caledonians and Romans (first century BC–fifth century AD)”, in The History of Scotland, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge & Kegan Paul, →ISBN; republished Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005, →ISBN, page 16:

Ancestors of the historical Picts can be credited with the structural form of the wheelhouse with its western and northern affinities, and with the souterrain, and distribution and function of which is becoming clearer, but which may now be thought to have persisted in evolved form until the middle part of the first millennium AD [...].

1986, J[ohn] R. Hunter, “Phase 1”, in I. B. M. Ralston, A. N. Shepherd, editors, Rescue Excavations on the Brough of Birsay 1974–82 (Monograph Series; no. 4), Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, →ISBN, section 2:1 (The Native Background), page 25:

(archaeology) A prehistoric structure from the Iron Age found in Scotland, characteristically including an outer wall within which a circle of stone piers (resembling the spokes of a wheel) form the basis for lintel arches supporting corbelled roofing with a hearth at the hub.


intentionalism

(history) The theory that the Holocaust was the result of a preconceived plan and decision by Adolf Hitler.


protected area

(conservation biology) an area where natural values are protected. The most common definitions of protected areas are those of the IUCN (World Conservation Union) http://www.iucn.org.

chráněné území

conservation biology: an area where natural values are protected


revisionism

en-noun

revisionism (countable and uncountable, plural revisionisms)

/ɹɪˈvɪʒəˌnɪzəm/

As for Jones’s performance as Mandy Cohen, it united two leading facets of the funnyman’s repertoire: his fondness for female impersonation, and his passion for historical revisionism.

2020 January 22, Stuart Jeffries, “Terry Jones obituary”, in The Guardian:

Tories spent last week boldly whistling their unique brand of the kind of historical revisionism that has played a major part in getting us here.

2018, Anne Perkins, “A Dad’s Army-style Brexit looms. ‘Don’t panic!’”, in Guardian:

Meanwhile, Holocaust survivors are dying every day. There are few left to protest the new revisionism.

2022 January 29, Jan Grabowski, “The New Wave of Holocaust Revisionism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Katelyn Jetelina is an epidemiologist and the author of the popular newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist. She argues that we’ve entered a new phase of the Covid-19 pandemic: “pandemic revisionism.”

2023 August 29, Ezra Klein, “It’s Time to Talk About ‘Pandemic Revisionism’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

For inspiration, they [Orbán’s fellow anti-liberal counterrevolutionaries] look to the Russia of Vladimir Putin, whose national chauvinism, banning of “gender ideology” and “gay propaganda,” and revisionism against the world order fit well with their agenda.

2025 March 19, Arash Azizi, “A Battle for the Soul of the West”, in The Atlantic:

(historiography) The advocacy of a revision of some accepted theory, doctrine or a view of historical events.


cortex

cortex (countable and uncountable, plural cortexes or cortices)

(archaeology) The outer surface of a piece of flint.


cockatrice

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-cockatrice.wav

First attested 1382 as Middle English cocatrice (“basilisk”), from Old French cocatriz, from Late Latin calcātrīx (“she who treads upon something”), from Latin calcō (“tread”), from calx (“heel, hoof”).

der

For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 8:17:

(fantasy, folklore) A snake or serpent that appears to be hatched from a rooster, or cock's, egg.


seven-league boots

en-noun

seven-league boots pl (normally plural, singular seven-league boot)

The Count strode away as if he had secured seven-league boots, and in less time than it seemed possible, though it was an age to Lady Anne (...), he returned with two bank of England notes in his hand, which he put into the bailiff's, saying,—"There's your money for yourself and all. You have proper behavour, and will make no say of this littel matter."

1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XL, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 211:

(folklore, fairy tale) A pair of boots enabling the wearer to cross seven leagues at one stride.


domus

Borrowed from Latin domus. Doublet of dome and duomo.

The domus was a unique and unprecedented concentration of tilled fields, seed and graain stores, people, and domestic animals, all coevolving with consequences no one could possibly have foreseen.

2017, James C Scott, chapter 2, in Against the Grain, New Haven and London: Yale University, →ISBN, page 73:

(anthropology, archaeology) A farmstead with its people, plants and animals, considered as a unit.


Black Legend

the Black Legend (canonical)
black legend (alternative)

Calque of Spanish Leyenda Negra (literally “Black Legend”).

cal

[…]if the black legend seemed to be fading at last, the horrors of the Civil War revived it with a vengeance. Never was a conflict fought more bitterly.

1964, Jan Morris, “Wild Spain”, in Spain, Faber and Faber, published 2008, →ISBN:

Here the problem is aggravated by the mutually reinforcing influences of the ‘black legend’ of Spanish greed and cruelty, and the contrasting myth of the American Indian as ‘noble savage’.

1992, Edwin Williamson, The Penguin history of Latin America, London, New York: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 84:

(historiography) The depiction of Spain and Spaniards (or, by extension, all Hispanics and their countries of origin) as bloodthirsty and cruel, greedy and fanatical, especially concerning the colonial period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

Zwarte Legende

the depiction of Spain as cruel, greedy and fanatical


changeling

/ˈt͡ʃeɪnd͡ʒlɪŋ/

The noun is derived from change + -ling (suffix with the sense ‘immature; small’). Sense 6 (“idiot, simpleton”) is from the idea that foolish children had been left by magical creatures (sense 1).
The adjective is derived from the noun.

suffix

[S]he, as her attendant, hath / A louely boy ſtollen, from an Indian king: / She neuer had ſo ſweete a changeling.

[c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

Every Lover admires his miſtris, though ſhee be very deformed of her ſelfe, [...] her feet ſtinke, ſhee breed lice, a meere changeling, a very monſter, [...]: if he loue her once, he admires her for all this, he takes no notice of any ſuch errors, or imperfections of body or minde.

1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Symptomes or Signes of Love Melancholy, in Body, Minde, Good, Bad, &c.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 3, section 2, member 3, subsection 1, page 515:

Juſt as a Changeling ſeems below the reſt / Of Men, or rather is a two-legg’d Beaſt, / So theſe Gigantick Souls amaz'd we find / As much above the reſt of human kind.

1709, Earl of Murlgrave [i.e., John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, formerly Earl of Mulgrave], An Essay on Poetry, London: […] H. Hills, […], →OCLC, page 15:

Nothing will induce parents to show any attention to a child that they suspect of being a changeling.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 263:

It was easy enough to see that the child was a changeling, for it wasn't like other children at all it screamed and cried, as if a knife stuck in it, and it wheezed and hit about with its arms like a huldre-cat, and was as ugly as sin.

1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 298:

His nurse had told him all about changelings, and how the little people would always try to steal a beautiful human child out of its cradle and put in its stead one of their own ailing, puking brats [...]

1961, Muriel Saint Clare Byrne, Elizabethan Life in Town and Country, 8th edition, London: Methuen & Co., →OCLC, page 285:

(European folklore, also figurative) In pre-modern European folklore: an infant of a magical creature that was secretly exchanged for a human infant. In British, Irish and Scandinavian mythology the exchanged infants were thought to be those of fairies, sprites or trolls; in other places, they were ascribed to demons, devils, or witches.

خائن

infant of a magical creature secretly exchanged for a human infant


airlift

(archaeology) A pipe that is used to suck up objects from the sea bed.


Bruno

en-proper noun

Bruno (countable and uncountable, plural Brunos or Brunoes)

From Italian, German etc continental European Bruno, name of medieval Italian and German saints and royalty, Latinized form of Old High German brūn (“brown”), from Proto-West Germanic *brūn. The surname is mostly borrowed from Italian Bruno. Doublet of Brown.


biofact

(archaeology) a biological artefact, not altered by human hands; e.g. a seed, or an uncarved wooden roof beam.


dendrochronology

(biology, archaeology) The science that uses the spacing between the annual growth rings of trees to date their exact year of formation.


dendroarchaeology

(archaeology) the science that uses dendrochronology to date wooden material from archaeological sites


civitas

Unadapted borrowing from Latin cīvitās. Doublet of city.

(Roman history) the social body of the citizens united by law

(Roman history) a city and its territory


encampment

en-noun

encampment (countable and uncountable, plural encampments)

PIE word
 *h₁én
From encamp (“to establish a camp or temporary shelter”) + -ment (suffix forming nouns denoting actions or their results).

affix

(by extension, archaeology) An enclosed or fortified prehistoric site, especially a European Iron Age hill-fort.


kobold

en-noun

kobold (plural kobolds or (rare) kobolde)

kobolds (plural)
kobolde (plural rare)
cobold (alternative)

Borrowed from German Kobold. Doublet of cobalt.

a. 1867, George MacDonald, The Shadows, 2000 [1980], The Golden Key and Other Stories, page 96,
The king had seen all kinds of gnomes, goblins, and kobolds at his coronation; […] .

Among the nonhuman creatures that peopled rural Europe in the Middle Ages — the fairies, elves, dwarfs, trolls, and kobolds — there were beneficent female spirits who patronized those households that treated them well.

1977, James Buchanan Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England, published 2007, page 138:

In Germany also the kobolds are rather troublesome than otherwise, to the miners, taking pleasure in frustrating their objects, and rendering their toil unfruitful.

2011, William Wirt Sikes, Varla Ventura, The Occult Powers of Goats and Other Welsh Tales of Goblins, Fairies, Gnomes, and Elves, unnumbered page:

(German folklore) A mischievous elf or goblin, or one connected (and helpful) to a family or household.


thematic

en-adj

thematic (comparative more thematic, superlative most thematic)

more thematic (comparative)
most thematic (superlative)

From Ancient Greek θεματικός (thematikós), from θέμα (théma, “theme”). Equivalent to theme + -atic.

(history) Of or relating to a theme (“subdivision of the Byzantine empire”).


deletionist

deletionist (comparative more deletionist, superlative most deletionist)

more deletionist (comparative)
most deletionist (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-deletionist.wav

(classical studies) Favoring the deletion of a given passage or work as spurious.


stele

steles (plural)
stelai (plural)
stélé (alternative)
stelè (alternative)

From Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē, “upright rock; pillar; column”), plural form στῆλαι (stêlai). Doublet of stela.

uder

A superior class of members...had their names inscribed upon a marble stélé or column.

1820, T. S. Hughes, Trav. Sicily, I x 303:

It appears, that when any one of the family died, a stelè to his memory was added to the tomb.

1825, T. D. Fosbroke, Encycl. Antiq., I v 70:

In Egypt [obelisks] belonged to the class of steles (commemorative pillars).

1847, C. O. Müller, translated by J. Leitch, Anc. Art, §224 193:

The Australian stele, or grave-pillar.

1884, A. Lang, Custom & Myth, section 285:

(archaeology) An upright (or formerly upright) slab containing engraved or painted decorations or inscriptions; a stela.

Two large hieroglyphed steles incised upon the face of a projecting mass of boldly rounded cliff.

1877, A. B. Edwards, Thousand Miles up Nile, VI 143:

(archaeology, uncommon) Any carved or engraved surface.

لَوْحَة تِذْكَارِيَّة

(archaeology) tall, slender stone monument

Stele. The ornaments on the ridge of a Greek temple, answering to the antefixæ on the summit of the flank entablatures, are thus designated.

c. 1840, Hosking, "Architecture" in Encyclopædia Britannica, III 470

(architecture, archaeology, obsolete) An acroterion, the decoration on the ridge of an ancient Greek building such as a temple.


thunderbolt

(paleontology) A belemnite, or thunderstone.


signum

Learned borrowing from Latin signum. Doublet of sign.

(history) A medieval tower bell used particularly for ringing the eight canonical hours.


BD

Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead#English

(Egyptology) Initialism of Book of the Dead.


Ionian

* (Hellenic, Ionia, architecture): Ionia + -n
* (moon of Jupiter): Io + -n- + -ian

(geology, paleontology) A subdivision of the Pleistocene epoch.


pothole

potholes (plural)
pot-hole (alternative)

From dialectal pot (“pit, hollow, cavity”) + hole. The "cave" senses, attested since at least 1809 (as pot-hole), may be from Middle English pot, potte (“a deep hole for a mine, or from peat-digging”), of uncertain origin; perhaps related to English pit, pote, or pot. Compare Scots pott, patt (“a pit dug in the ground; coalpit”).

(archaeology) A pit resulting from unauthorized excavation by treasure-hunters or vandals.

kuoppa

hole in a burial mound resulting from unauthorized excavators


skeletal

skeletals (plural)
sceletal (alternative)

(paleontology, informal) Shorthand for skeletal diagram (a black-and-white drawing of a [usually extinct] animal’s skeleton to be used as a reference for paleoart)


conjoin

/kənˈd͡ʒɔɪn/

From Old French conjoindre, from Latin coniungo, from con- (“together”) + iungo (“join”). Equivalent to con- + join.

Attention must also be given to understanding why certain sites yield a low number of conjoins.

1984, Ellen M. Kroll, Glynn Ll. Isaac, “Configurations of artifacts and bones at early Pleistocene sites in East Africa”, in Harold Hietala, editor, Intrasite Spatial Analysis in Archaeology, →ISBN, page 23:

(archaeology) A reassembled bone, stone or ceramic artifact.


pot boiler

pot boilers (plural)
potboiler (alternative)
pot-boiler (alternative)

The figurative sense comes from the notion that the writer's or artist's output is enough to provide sustenance; compare breadwinner, put food on the table, and keep the lights on.

(archaeology) A stone used to transfer heat from a fire into a vessel of water, so as to heat the contents.


midden

From Middle English midding, myddyng, from Old Danish mykdyngja, (a compound of Old Norse myk, myki (“muck, manure”) and dyngja (“dung, dungpile”)), whence also Danish møgdynge and mødding, Norwegian mødding, dialectal Swedish mödding.

(archaeology) An accumulation, deposit, or soil derived from occupation debris, rubbish, or other by-products of human activity, such as bone, shell, ash, or decayed organic materials; or a pile or mound of such materials, often prehistoric.

køkkenmødding

archeology: prehistoric pile of bones and shells


silver bullet

(literally, folklore) A bullet made of silver, usually with reference to the folkloric belief that such bullets are the only weapons which can kill a werewolf, vampire, or other monster.


sown

(especially historiography) Cultivated land inhabited by sedentary agriculturalists, in contrast to the nomad pastoralists of the steppe or desert.


carpetbagger

carpetbaggers (plural)
carpet bagger (alternative)

/ˈkɑɹpɪtˌbæɡɚ/

/ˈkɑːpɪtˌbaɡə/

From carpetbag + -er, because many carried their belongings in cheap luggage made from carpet fabric.

“You are way behind the times,” he said. “There is no Klan in Atlanta now. Probably not in Georgia. You’ve been listening to the Klan outrage stories of your Scallawag and Carpetbagger friends.”

1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC, part V, page 981:

The carpetbagger remains one of the most enduring symbols of the Reconstruction era. Technically, a carpetbagger was simply a northerner who went South in the wake of the Civil War and took part in Republican Party politics. For most of its lifespan, however, the term has been an epithet, denoting a lowly, immoral northern opportunist, a demagogue who preyed on the defeated South, perverted sectional peace, and rose to power by deceiving African American voters.

2012, William A. Blair, Journal of the Civil War Era: Winter 2012 Issue, UNC Press Books, →ISBN, page 539:

(politics, history, chiefly US, offensive) A migrant from the Northern to the Southern States after the American Civil War of 1861–5, especially one who went South to gain political influence.


madreporite

/ˌmædɹəˈpɔɹaɪt/

From madrepore + -ite; the echinoderm sense is in reference to how it resembles the coral.

a similar Madreporite deposite is noticed a few feet above the coal seam

1839, Report of the progress of the Geological Survey for the year 1839:

Whether madreporite occurs naturally in Spain, I do not know

1943, “Publications of the Folklore Society (Great Britain)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 138:

Madreporite was regarded as a variety of calcite and anthraconite a lamellar variety of madreporite

1989, Society for the Bibliography of Natural History (Great Britain), Archives of Natural History, page 199:

(archaic, paleontology) A fossil stony coral, or a deposit composed of the same.


Aalenian

(geology, paleontology) A subdivision of the Middle Jurassic epoch or series.


Aalenian

(geology, paleontology) Of or pertaining to the Aalenian epoch.


kist

Possibly borrowed from Old Norse kista (“chest”); but see also English cist (“crypt”).

The global library of ice has become a cracked kist, a broken storehouse leaking its contents.

2020, David Farrier, “The Library of Babel”, in Footprints, 4th Estate, →ISBN:

(archaeology) Alternative form of cist (“crypt”)


menhir

PIE word
 *méǵh₂s
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂sder.?
Proto-Celtic *maginos
Proto-Brythonic *maɣɨnder.
Breton maen
Proto-Indo-European *seh₁-
Proto-Indo-European *-rós
Proto-Celtic *sīros
Proto-Brythonic *hirder.
Breton hir
Breton maen-hirbor.
French menhirbor.
English menhir
Either borrowed from French menhir, or from its etymon Breton maen-hir, compound of maen (“stone”) + hir (“long”). Compare with Welsh maen hir, and Cornish mênhere.

com+

Near-synonym: orthostat

[N]o time has passed since we lived in caves, grappled with fish at the reedy shore, buried our dead with a song, with red-ochre and pulled up our dolmens, temples and menhirs and standing stones to the glory of some indeterminate god or gods, […]

1963, Thomas Pynchon, “Confessions of Fausto Maijstral”, in V.: […], Philadelphia, Pa., New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC, pages 310–311:

On the coast tree ferns and pandanus palms. Inland termite menhirs seventeen feet high.

1980, Anthony Burgess, chapter 39, in Earthly Powers, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, London: Penguin Books, published 1981, →ISBN, page 280:

(archaeology) A single tall standing stone as a monument, especially one dating to prehistoric times.


oecus

Borrowed from Latin oecus, from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos, “house”).

(history) An apartment, room, or hall in an ancient Roman dwelling house.


typology

en-noun

typology (countable and uncountable, plural typologies)

(archaeology) The result of the classification of things according to their characteristics.


necropolis

necropolis (plural necropolises or necropoleis or necropoles or necropoli)

necropolises (plural)
necropoleis (plural)
necropoles (plural)
necropoli (plural)
nekropolis (alternative)

Brookwood Cemetery
Deir el-Bahari
London Necropolis Railway
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
Theban Necropolis

Borrowed from Koine Greek νεκρόπολις (nekrópolis, “city of the dead, cemetery”) (used to describe part of the city of Alexandria, Egypt), from Ancient Greek νεκρός (nekrós, “dead”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *neḱ- (“to disappear; to perish”)) + πόλις (pólis, “city”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tpelH- (“city; fortification”)). The English word is analysable as necro- + -polis, and is cognate with French nécropole, German Nekropolis, Late Latin necropolis.
The plural form necropoleis is derived from Ancient Greek νεκροπόλεις (nekropóleis).

der

These labours upon Phœnician necropoli are of great importance. [...] M. [Louis Félicien] de Saulcy, one of the first travellers who has thrown light upon these necropoli, devoted himself to a very interesting examination of the tombs of the kings, of the prophets and judges, and upon the immense necropolis that surrounds Jerusalem, like a funeral enceinte.

1853, Abbé de St. Michon [i.e., Jean-Hippolyte Michon], chapter XIV, in [anonymous], transl., Narrative of a Religious Journey in the East in 1850 and 1851, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 338:

The ancient Greeks generally buried their dead in their nekropoleis or their gardens; often on the road leading to their towns, or before the gates. This pious feeling of affection and reverence for the dead, is a touching feature in the character of the modern Greeks.

1854, A[dolphus] L[ouis] Kœppen, “The Harbors and Naval Establishments of the Ancient Athenians—The Modern Peiræus”, in Sketches of a Traveller from Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, Chambersburg, Pa.: […] M. Kieffer & Co., →OCLC, page 19:

What shall I say of these immense Necropoleis, or Cities of the Dead, where the same care and labour were employed to embellish death, as other nations have bestowed on the adornment of life? Such an architecture could have sprung up only among a people filled with the idea of immortality, and in whose eyes earthly existence was but a fleeting passage to a future life.

1859, James Burton Robinson, “Lecture IV. Lecture on the Geography, Institutions, Trade, Arts, and Sciences of Ancient Egypt”, in Public Lectures Delivered before the Catholic University of Ireland, on Some Subjects of Ancient & Modern History, in the Years 1856, 1857, & 1858, London: Catholic Bookselling & Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, page 149:

The monuments of Egypt are religious, as the temples; sepulchral, as the necropoles; or triumphal, as the obelisks. [...] The most splendid necropoles of Egypt are those of Memphis and Thebes, and to the necropolis of the former the pyramids of El-Geezeh, near Cairo, are especially related.

1860, Anne C[harlotte] Lynch Botta, “Egyptian Literature”, in Hand-book of Universal Literature, from the Best and Latest Authorities: […], New York, N.Y.: Derby & Jackson, […], →OCLC, page 60:

Are we not overawed by those immense temples [in Egypt], those prodigious palaces, those grottos hewn in the living rock, those endless necropolises, and those indestructible colossi?

1865 February 1, “Pointed Architecture. […]”, in The Art-Student; a Magazine of the Fine Arts: […], volume II, number 13, London: Hall, Smart, and Allen, […], →OCLC, page 262, column 2:

What would be the result if one attempted to determine the physical character of that people from a study of the remains in their necropoli?

1899 May, William Z[ebina] Ripley, “The Origin of European Culture”, in Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly, volume LV, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, →OCLC, pages 24–25:

"How did you happen to discover it?" he inquired as they emerged from the end of the avenue under a massive gateway carved by the cemetery's developers to resemble some regal necropolis of the Pharaohs.

1988 November, Barbara Hambly, chapter 3, in Those Who Hunt the Night, New York, N.Y.: Open Road Media, published 2011, →ISBN:

The great cemeteries or necropolises (literally, "cities of the dead") adjacent to the major Etruscan cities such as Cerveteri and Tarquinia are the most visible relics of this civilization.

1993, Graeme Barker, Annie Grant, Tom Rasmussen, “Approaches to the Etruscan Landscape: The Development of the Tuscania Survey”, in Peter Bogucki, editor, Case Studies in European Prehistory, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, page 229:

Separate fractions of dentine and enamel of 12 individuals from the necropolis of Sion (Valais, Switzerland) have been analyzed for Pb and Sr isotope compositions.

2003 March, M. Chiaradia, A. Gallay, W. Todt, “Different Contamination Styles of Prehistoric Human Teeth at a Swiss Necropolis (Sion, Valais) Inferred from Lead and Strontium Isotopes”, in Applied Geochemistry, volume 18, number 3, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, abstract, page 353:

If the layer of the offerings is contemporary with the burials, then these are the earliest of the nekropolis, dating to the early third quarter of the seventh century.

2011, Alexandra[-Fani] Alexandridou, “Attic Early Black-figured Shapes”, in John M. Fossey, Angelo Geissen, editors, The Early Black-figured Pottery of Attika in Context (c. 630–570 BCE) (Monumenta Graeca et Romana; 17), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 38, column 1:

(archaeology) An ancient site used for burying the dead, particularly if consisting of elaborate grave monuments.


vizier

viziers (plural)
vezir (alternative)
vezîr (alternative)
vazir (alternative)
wasir (alternative)
wazir (alternative)
wazīr (alternative)
vizir (alternative)
vizeer (alternative)
guazil (alternative)

→ Irish: visír

→ Welsh: fisir

From Ottoman Turkish وزیر (vezir) (Turkish vezir) (via French vizir), from Arabic وَزِير (wazīr, “helper, aide, minister”, literally “one who bears (the burden of office)”). Doublet of wazir.

(history) A high-ranking official or minister in an Islamic government, especially in the Ottoman Empire.

(history) The highest-ranking official or minister in ancient Egypt or Ebla; a chief administrator or a chancellor.

As Inanna prepares to descend she fastens the seven divine laws to her side, and as she walks toward the netherworld she speaks to her vizier, Ninshubur.

1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 174:

(history) An ancient Mesopotamian 𒈛 (sukkal).


quadrat

Attested since 1683. Possibly from French cadrat or Italian quadrato (“square”), from Latin quadrātum (“square”). Doublet of quadrate and of etymology 1 above. So called because the basic quadrat, the em quadrat, has a square face, having the same width as the height of a line of type.

(Egyptology) A virtual rectangular subdivision of a line or column of hieroglyphs within which a group of hieroglyphs is arranged.


doubles

→ Japanese: ダブルス (daburusu)

A quarter peal of plain bob doubles was rung.

(campanology, plural only) bell changes rung on five bells


parietal

From Latin parietālis, from pariēs (“wall”).

(archaeology) A flat Roman wall tile with roughened surface, used as a base for plasterwork.


radiocarbon dating

en-noun

radiocarbon dating (usually uncountable, plural radiocarbon datings)

(physics, archaeology, paleontology) A method of estimating the age of an artifact or biological vestige based on the relative amounts of the different isotopes of carbon present in a sample.


canopic jar

From Latin Canōpicus, from Canopus + -icus.

Had Radulph Tubbs such luck with tombs it is probable that he […] would have uncovered only the four canopic jars containing, respectively, the large intestines, small intestines, heart, and liver.

1993, Rikki Ducornet, The Jade Cabinet, Dalkey Archive Press, page 120:

(archaeology) An Egyptian pottery container in which the entrails of a mummy have been placed.


Mrs. Claus

Mrs. Clauses (plural)
Mistress Santa Claus (alternative)
Mrs Claus (alternative)
Mrs Santa Claus (alternative)
Mrs. Santa Claus (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Mrs. Claus.wav

A relatively new gala, the Celebrate Santa Convention boasts a sea of Santas, Mrs. Clauses, elves, and reindeers, […]

2011, Kristin Luna, Tennessee Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff, Guilford, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, page 167:

In normal years, he runs a roving school for Santas and Mmes. Claus and supplies a workforce of bearded men to malls and corporate events around the country. […] He led a neighborhood tree-lighting in a blue surgical mask with a Mrs. Claus friend near his apartment in Upper Manhattan, and a few buddies volunteered for a socially distanced Christmas parade.

2020 December 25, Emma Green, “The Christmas Crisis”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 2020-12-25:

“Why do I get the feeling that ‘we’ includes me?” I said warily. “Of course it includes you. You’re Mrs. Claus.” She reconsidered. “One of the Mrs. Clauses, at any rate. I signed you up for two shifts and some cookies. Surely that’s not too much to ask?”

2021, Liz Ireland, Mrs. Claus and the Halloween Homicide, Kensington Books, →ISBN:

In 1937, a Michigan school was established in Midland, and it has been training Santas and Mrs. Clauses for eighty-five years.

2022, Bill Loomis, Christmas in Detroit, Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, →ISBN, page 67:


ichnofossil

/ˈɪknəʊˌfɒsəl/

For example, an ichnofossil might be the preserved track an animal, or its burrow.

Suites of taphonomic factors that influence body fossils and ichnofossils are clearly not identical. Nonetheless, without too much twisting, ichnofossil-lagerstätten can be placed into the same genetic categories.

2007, Charles E. Savrda, “6: Taphonomy of Trace Fossils”, in William Miller, III, editor, Trace Fossils, Elsevier, page 106:

The only abundant ichnofossils are large and inclined structures in La Cancha Bed (Profile K), interpreted as mammal burrows.

2010, Eduardo S. Bellosi et al., “21: Ichnofacies Examination of the Sarmiento Formation”, in R. H. Madden, A. A. Carlini, M. G. Vucetich, R. F. Kay, editors, The Paleontology of Gran Barranca, Cambridge University Press, page 313:

Changes in the preservational environment in the thousands or millions of years between the creation of each set of prints results in these different forms of ichnofossil.

2017 March 22, Elsa Panciroli, “Walking in the footsteps of giants and gerbils: what fossil prints can tell us”, in The Guardian:

(paleontology) A trace fossil; a fossil record that preserves some activity of an organism, but no part of the organism itself.


trace fossil

(paleontology) A type of fossil reflecting the reworking of sediments and hard substrates by organisms, rather than the physical remains of the organism itself. This includes structures such as burrows, trails, impressions, coprolites and borings.

icnofóssil

a geological record of an organism's activity, rather than the physical remains of the organism itself


ichnology

ichnology (countable and uncountable, plural ichnologies)

/ɪkˈnɒləd͡ʒɪ/

(paleontology) A branch of paleontology concerned with the study of trace fossils such as footprints and burrows. Its subdisciplines include paleoichnology and neoichnology.


paleoichnology

The evolutionary aspect of ecology which has started to develop due to studies of trace fossils will stay long the privilege of paleoichnology.

1984, Palaeontology: Proceedings of the 27th International Geological Congress: Invited Papers, Volume 2, International Geological Congress:

Paleoichnology is their historic equivalent—the study of ichnological evidence of animals of the past.

2003, Jose Louis Sanz, Starring T. Rex! Dinosaur Mythology and Popular Culture, Indiana University Press, page 8:

As far as I can discern for now, only a few of the lessons learned were readily applicable to mainstream neoichnology and paleoichnology, but no matter.

2004, Ichnology Newsletter, number 26, page 42:

This field is called paleoichnology, which means the study (ology) of ancient (paleo) footprints (ichnos). Despite its name, there's more to paleoichnology than footprints.

2006, Richard L. Orndorff, Robert W. Wieder, David G. Futey, “Geology Underfoot in Southern Utah”, in Mountain, Press Publishing, page 12:

The subjects of paleoichnology are trace fossils (also called ichnofossils), which are fossilized structures produced in substrates ranging from unlithified sediment to sedimentary rock or organic matter (including shell, bone, wood and peat) by the activity of organisms.

2017, Dirk Knaust, Atlas of Trace Fossils in Well Core, Springer, page 5:

(paleontology) A branch of ichnology concerned with the study of trace fossils preserved in ancient rocks.


stela

stela (plural stelas or stelae or steles)

stelas (plural)
stelae (plural)
steles (plural)

From Latin stēla, from Ancient Greek στήλη (stḗlē). Doublet of stele.

In the courts of the houses lie many round stelæ, or pillars, once placed on the graves of the Athenians.

1776, R. Chandler, Trav. Greece, VIII 35:

He erected a stela, with an inscription in the sacred character, to commemorate his successes.

1837, J. G. Wilkinson, Manners & Customs of the Anc. Egyptians, I ii 101:

The upright blocks or stelas are among the most curious parts of the present ruin.

1876, S. Manning, Land of Pharaohs, section 203:

Thothmes I. set up two stelæ near the Euphrates.

1893, E. A. T. W. Budge, Mummy, section 30:

A shore excursion had been arranged for the passengers who were interested in visiting the stelae of San Ignacio.

(archaeology) an obelisk or upright stone pillar, usually as a primitive commemoration or gravestone


xenia

From New Latin xenia, from Ancient Greek ξενίᾱ (xeníā, “hospitality”).

der

(classical studies) The concept of hospitality to strangers.


monumental

en-adj

monumental (comparative more monumental, superlative most monumental)

more monumental (comparative)
most monumental (superlative)

Borrowed from Late Latin monumentālis, from Latin monumentum; equivalent to monument + -al.

Monumental construction.


feyness

en-noun

feyness (countable and uncountable, plural feynesses)

(Shetland, folklore, countable) A ghost resembling a living person, seeing which is an omen of that person's death.


patriarchy

patriarchy (countable and uncountable, plural patriarchies)

/ˈpeɪ̯tɹɪɑːkɪ/

/ˈpætɹɪɑːkɪ/

From Latin patriarchia, from Byzantine Greek πατριαρχία (patriarkhía), from Koine Greek πατριάρχης (patriárkhēs, “patriarch”), from πατρία (patría) and ἄρχω (árkhō). By surface analysis, patri- + -archy.

der

(anthropology, history) A social system in which the father is head of the household, having authority over women and children, and in which lineage is traced through the male line.


jubilee

en-noun

jubilee (countable and uncountable, plural jubilees)

jubilees (plural)
jubile (alternative)
Jubilee (alternative)

/ˌd͡ʒuːbɪˈliː/

senses 3.3 and 3.4 when spelled jubile, obsolete

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

From Late Middle English jubile [and other forms], from Middle French jubile, from Old French jubilee, jubileus (modern French jubilé), from Late Latin iūbilaeus (adjective, also treated as a noun), from Ancient Greek ἰωβηλαῖος (iōbēlaîos, “of a jubilee”), from ἰώβηλος (iṓbēlos, “jubilee”) + -ῐος (-ĭos, suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). Ἰώβηλος (Iṓbēlos) is derived from Hebrew יוֹבֵל (yōḇēl, “ram, trumpet made from a ram’s horn; jubilee”) (because a ram’s horn trumpet was originally used to proclaim the event; see Leviticus 25:9), influenced by Latin iūbilum (“a cry, a shout”) and iūbilō (“to cheer, shout or sing joyfully”). Cognate with Italian giubileo, Spanish jubileo.

der

And thou ſhalt number ſeuen Sabbaths of yeeres vnto thee, ſeuen times ſeuen yeeres, and the ſpace of the ſeuen Sabbaths of yeeres, ſhall be vnto thee fourtie and nine yeeres. Then ſhalt thou cauſe the trumpet of the Jubile to ſound, on the tenth day of the ſeuenth moneth, in the day of atonement ſhall ye make the trumpet ſound throughout all your land. And ye ſhall hallow the fiftieth yeere, and proclaime libertie throughout all the land, vnto al the inhabitants thereof: It ſhalbe a Jubile vnto you, and ye ſhall returne euery man vnto his poſſeſſion, and ye ſhall returne euery man vnto his family.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Leviticus 25:8–10, column 2:

Touching this yeere of Iubilee is much controverſie. The ancient Authors account it the fiftieth yeere. […] Culuiſius hath at large diſputed this queſtion againſt Creutzhemius and Bucholcerus, by diuers arguments prouing that the Iubilee vvas but fortie nine yeeres complete, and that the fiftieth yeere vvas the firſt onvvards of another Iubilee or Sabbath of yeeres: […]

1626, [Samuel] Purchas, “Of the Festiuall Dayes Instituted by God in the Law”, in Purchas His Pilgrimes. […], 5th part, London: […] William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, […], →OCLC, 2nd book, page 113:

[I]n the old Israel, there had supposedly been a system of ‘Jubilee’, a year in which all land should go back to the family to which it had originally belonged and during which all slaves should be released.

2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Boundaries Defined (50 CE–300)”, in Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, New York, N.Y.: Viking, published 2010, →ISBN, page 120:

(countable, Jewish history) A special year of emancipation supposed to be observed every fifty years, when farming was temporarily stopped, certain houses and land which had been sold could be redeemed by the original owners or their relatives, and Hebrew slaves set free.

聖年 /圣年

(Jewish history) special year of emancipation supposed to be observed every fifty years


Padishah

Padishahs (plural)
Badshah (alternative)
badshah (alternative)
padishah (alternative)
Padshaw (alternative)
padshaw (alternative)
Potshaw (alternative)
potshaw (alternative)
Padishar (alternative)
padishar (alternative)

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish پادشاه (padişah), from Classical Persian پادِشاه (pādišāh) / پادْشاه (pādšāh).

(history) A ruler of a Muslim country or state.

padishah

(historical) a ruler of a Muslim country or state


erlking

erlkings (plural)
Erlking (alternative)
erl-king (alternative)

Partial calque of German Erlkönig (literally “alder-king”), a mistranslation of Danish ellerkonge (“king of the elves”).

pcal

This line, and indeed the whole passage (lines 653-664), allude to the well-known poem by Goethe about the erlking, hoary enchanter of the elf-haunted alderwood, who falls in love with the delicate little boy of a belated traveler.

1962, Charles Kinbote [pseudonym; Vladimir Nabokov], Pale Fire, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, published November 1985, →ISBN:

So easy for one young son to be swallowed up in a world teeming with Erlkings, real and imagined.

2010, Rachel Billington, The Missing Boy, Hachette, →ISBN:

He was in the forest looking to see the trees / But none were there / He found a girl / She found the erlking

2012, ミラクルミュージカル, “Murders”, in Hawaii: Part II:

By now, he seems less a cartoon character than some contemporary Erlking, the malicious spirit made famous by Goethe (and Schubert) but found originally in a Danish ballad.

2018 October 22, Carol Rumens, “Poem of the week: Three Poetesses by Kristín Ómarsdóttir”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(European folklore) In German literature and modern folklore, a malicious elf or spirit who preys on children.


Shoah

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Shoah.wav

From Hebrew שׁוֹאָה (šōʾā, “catastrophe”).

I never knew him, or any of my other relatives who died in the Shoah. But I would gladly dump every ounce of that gold into the ocean, just to give them a decent burial.

(history) The systematic mass murder of six million Jews perpetrated by Nazi Germany shortly before and during World War II.


spahi

From French spahi, from Ottoman Turkish سپاهی (sipahi), from Classical Persian سِپَاهِی (sipāhī, “horseman, soldier”) (> sepoy), from سِپَاه (sipāh, “army”). Doublet of sepoy and sipahi.

der

2001, Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red, tr. Erdağ M Göknar
I hear that the great Sadiki Bey illustrated a copy of Strange Creatures, commissioned by an Uzbek spahi cavalryman, for only forty gold pieces.

(history) An Ottoman (Turkish empire) cavalryman, especially as recruited under a land-based system.

(history) A soldier in a mainly Arab-recruited cavalry (originally horse, later light armored) regiment in French colonial service in (former/ in name still) Ottoman North African provinces


syrinx

/sɪˈɹɪnd͡ʒiːz/

Learned borrowing from Latin sȳrinx (“reed; reed pipe, panpipes”), from Ancient Greek σῦριγξ (sûrinx, “panpipes; pipe-shaped object”), from Pre-Greek. Doublet of syringe.
The plural form syringes is a learned borrowing from Latin sȳringes.

der

And novv vvhen the people of all ſorts came flocking to the Court, in a tumultuous manner, Agathocles [grandson of Agathocles of Syracuse], taking the King vvith him, vvent and hid himſelf, in a place called Syringes, vvhich vvas a gallery or vvalk, vvhich had every vvay three vvalls and gates to paſſe, before one could come unto it.

1658, James Ussher, “The Sixth Age of the World. [The Macedonian Empire.]”, in The Annals of the World. […], London: […] E[van] Tyler, for J[ohn] Crook, […], and for G[abriel] Bedell, […], →OCLC, page 374:

The Former of theſe Tvvo Hermes [i.e., the god Thoth], vvas the Inventor of Arts and Sciences, the Latter [Siphoas], the Reſtorer and Advancer of them: the Firſt vvrote in Hieroglyphicks upon Pillars, ἐν τῆ Συριγγικῆ γῆ [in the land of Syringes] (as the learned Valeſius conjectures it ſhould be read, instead of Σηριαδικῆ.) VVhich Syringes vvhat they vvere, Am[mianus] Marcellinus vvill inſtruct us; […]

1678, R[alph] Cudworth, chapter IV, in The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: […] Richard Royston, […], →OCLC, page 322:

There are alſo (in Egypt) Syrinxes, certain ſubterraneous and vvinding receſſes, vvhich (as it is ſaid) men skilled in antient rites, foreknovving the coming of the deluge, and fearing that the memory of their ceremonies ſhould be blotted out, hevved and faſhioned out of quarries in ſeveral places, vvith immenſe labour, and carved on the vvalls vvhich they had ſo hevvn, many kinds of fovvls, and vvild beaſts, and figures of animals innumerable, vvhich they called hieroglyphick (ſo ſome read the text) or ſacred characters.

1733, [Patrick Delany], “Dissertation XIV. Of Other Testimonies Relating to the Deluge.”, in Revelation Examined with Candour. Or, A Fair Enquiry into the Sense and use of the Several Revelations Expressly Declared, or Sufficiently Implied, to be Given to Mankind from the Creation, as They are Found in the Bible. […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: […] C[harles] Rivington, […], →OCLC, pages 247–248:

Further the Ramesseion (the Osmandyeion of the Descript.) with the alley of sphinxes, the Menephtheion (palace at Kurnah) and other monuments as late as Ptolemy the First's time. Grottoes and syrinxes all around.

1850, C. O. Müller [i.e., Karl Otfried Müller], F[riedrich] G[ottlieb] Welcker, “History of Art in Antiquity. Appendix. The Nations Not of Greek Race.”, in John Leitch, transl., Ancient Art and Its Remains; or A Manual of the Archæology of Art. […], new edition, London: A[rchibald] Fullarton and Co., […], →OCLC, note 3, page 216:

(archaeology, Egyptology) Chiefly in the plural: a narrow channel cut in rock, especially in Ancient Egyptian burial chambers.

Ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egyptian#Adjective


Cro-Magnon

en-noun

Cro-Magnon (plural Cro-Magnons or Cro-Magnon)

Cro-Magnons (plural)
Cro-Magnon (plural)

From French Cro-Magnon, from Occitan Cròs-Manhon.
Named after Abri de Cro-Magnon, a rock shelter in the commune of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil, Dordogne, France, where the first skeletons were found in 1868.

The Cro-Magnons may have been one important step beyond the Neanderthals in social organization.[…]That the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals encountered each other is probable. There seems to be no more than a five-thousand-year interval between the general occupation of home sites by the Neanderthals and their replacement by Cro-Magnon tools and fossils.

1994, Seymour W. Itzkoff, The Decline of Intelligence in America: A Strategy for National Renewal, Greenwood Publishing Group (Praeger Publishers), page 14:

The Cro Magnon came to live in Europe around forty thousand years ago and most educated people have heard of them. The Cro Magnon are the ones who created the remarkable cave paintings found in southern France and Spain at Lascaux and Altamira.

2006, Lyndall Baker Landauer, The Learning Pool: Basic Science Everyone Needs to Know, Xlibris, page 85:

In addition, the latest evidence suggests that the "agricultural revolution" occurred sometime during the second half of the Cro-Magnon era. Anatomically, the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon brains were approximately the same overall size.

2009, Anthony Scioli, Henry B. Biller, Hope in the Age of Anxiety, Oxford University Press, page 44:

(archaeology) The earliest known form of modern human (Homo sapiens) in Europe, dating from the late Paleolithic.

кроманьо́нец

earliest known form of modern human, in Europe


tegula

Borrowed from Latin tegula (“a tile”), from tegō (“to cover”). Doublet of tile.

(archaeology) A flat Roman roof tile with raised edges, joined together by an imbrex.


gracile

en-adj

gracile (comparative more gracile, superlative most gracile)

more gracile (comparative)
most gracile (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-gracile.wav

/ˈɡɹeɪˌsaɪl/

Borrowed from Middle French gracil, gracile (“slender, thin”) (modern French gracile (“gracile”)), or directly from its etymon Latin gracilis (“slender, slim, thin; lean, meagre, scanty; simple, unadorned”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kerḱ- (“to become thin; to wane”). The sense “graceful or gracefully slender” was apparently influenced by the non-cognate word grace. The English word is cognate with Italian gracile (“delicate, frail; slender, thin”), Portuguese grácil, Spanish grácil (“graceful; delicate; slender”), and a doublet of gracilis.

cog

This tentative comparison, plus consideration of individual skulls, shows the Neolithic pre-Greeks more Mediterranean than the Greeks, with emphasis on intermediate or gracile Mediterranean rather more than on the rugged Basic White trend, [...]

1945, J. Lawrence Angel, “Neolithic Ancestors of the Greeks”, in American Journal of Archaeology, volume 49, number 3, →DOI, page 256:

Where stratified fossil sequences are known, "gracile" fossils precede robust ones. The extremely robust hominids do not appear on the scene until about 2 million years ago, followed shortly thereafter by an "advanced" gracile. Both the advanced gracile and robust forms probably evolved from earlier gracile australopithecines.

1981, Nancy Makepeace Turner, “Early Hominid Lifeways: The Critical Role of an Interpretive Framework”, in On Becoming Human, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 254:

At various times since Homo first appeared in Africa, it shared the continent with more robust hominids, perhaps several different species of them. [...] They seem to have evolved from more ‘gracile’ apes (gracile being the opposite of robust). The gracile apes are also placed in the genus Australopithecus, and we too almost certainly emerged from among gracile australopithecine ranks.

2004, Richard Dawkins, “Ape-men”, in The Ancestor’s Tale: The Dawn of Life, New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, pages 86–87:

We would also expect increasing home-range size in Neanderthals in 'edge' regions (bordering the MLB and the plains), such as south-west France, in response to habitat fragmentation during periods of expansion of open vegetation. A more gracile morphology would have been far more efficient over larger areas.

2004, Clive Finlayson, “Comparative Behaviour and Ecology of Neanderthals and Modern Humans”, in Neanderthals and Modern Humans: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 117:

(chiefly zoology, anthropology, paleontology) Of an animal or skeletal element: having a slender frame.


backfill

en-verb

backfill (third-person singular simple present backfills, present participle backfilling, simple past and past participle backfilled)

backfills (present singular third-person)
backfilling (participle present)
backfilled (participle past)
backfilled (past)
back-fill (alternative)

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We backfilled the cistern with pea gravel to discourage its use as a refuse container.

(archaeology) To refill an excavation unit to restore the former ground surface and/or to preserve the unit and make it recognizable as having been excavated.


Annam

Borrowed from Vietnamese An Nam, from Chinese 安南 (Ānnán).

(history) A former colonial province of China, now part of Vietnam's present-day Tonkin.


Annam

Borrowed from French Annam, from Vietnamese An Nam, from Chinese 安南 (Ānnán).

(history) One the French protectorates in Vietnam, located in Central Vietnam.


witenagemot

witenagemots (plural)
wittenagemot (alternative)
witenagemote (alternative)
wittenagemote (alternative)
wittena-gemote (alternative)
wittena-gemot (alternative)

Learned borrowing from Old English witena ġemōt (literally “assembly of the wise”).

lbor

To this study was necessarily added that of the ecclesiastical canons; and the knowledge of each must have given the clergy a great superiority, both as legislators in the witenagemot, and as magistrates in the different courts, at which it was their duty to attend.

1851, John Lingard, The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, J Murphy, page 102:

(history, usually uncountable, sometimes countable) Any of several assemblies which existed in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th to the 11th century, initially with regional jurisdiction (there being different ones in Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex), later with national jurisdiction, made up of important noblemen.

(history, countable) A specific session of such an assembly.


CHE

Carnian humid episode
Carnian humid episode#English

(paleontology, geology) Initialism of Carnian humid episode.


lynchet

lynchets (plural)
landshard (alternative)
linchet (alternative)
lanchet (alternative)

Apparently lynch (“variant of linch”) + -et, the first element derived from Old English hlinc (“a hill”).

A stretch of a hundred odd acres, in one patch, on the highest ground of the farm, rising above stony lanchets or lynchets - the outcrop of siliceous veins in the chalk formation.

1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter 43, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Penguin Classics, published 2003, →ISBN:

(archaeology) A bank of earth that slowly builds up on the lower slope of a ploughed field; a feature of ancient field systems.


helium dating

(archaeology) a method of determining the age of rock that depends on the production of helium during the decay of various radioactive isotopes of uranium and thorium.


mara

Borrowed from Old Norse mara, from Proto-Germanic *marǭ, cognate with Old English mare or mære. Doublet of mare. See nightmare.

The corpus of related texts tells us that within rural society it was not improbable for your neighbour's envy of your fine cattle to take the form of a mara.

1996, Catharina Raudvere, “Now you see her, now you don't: some notes on the conception of female shape-shifters in Scandinavian traditions”, in Sandra Billington, Miranda Green, editors, The Concept of the Goddess, pages 41–55:

(European folklore) A nightmare; a spectre or wraith-like creature in Germanic and particularly Scandinavian folklore; a female demon who torments people in sleep by crouching on their chests or stomachs, or by causing terrifying visions.

խիպիլիկ

(folklore) a nightmare; spectre or wraith-like creature


gord

From Proto-Slavic *gordъ. Doublet of yard and garth.

(archaeology) A medieval Slavonic fortified settlement, typically a group of wooden houses surrounded by a wall of earth and wood, with a palisade running along the top of the bulwark.


trench cut

(archaeology) A triangle-shaped cut in a tell, used to see how many levels there are or to find information about each separate settlement.


Abbevillian

Name derived from Abbeville, France (location of the archaeological sites).

Abbevillean (alternative)
Abbevilean (alternative)

(archaeology, dated) Of or relating to any of various early Paleolithic sites, particularly in Europe, that are characterized by the presence of bifacial stone axes.


Abbevillian

(archaeology, dated) The earliest epoch of the early Paleolithic stage or tradition characterized by the presence of bifacial stone axes, especially in Europe.


triples

A quarter peal of plain bob triples was rung.

(campanology) bell changes rung on seven bells


syntagma

en-noun

syntagma (plural syntagmata or syntagmas)

syntagmata (plural)
syntagmas (plural)
syntagm (alternative)

From Late Latin syntagma, from Ancient Greek σύνταγμα (súntagma, “orderly arrangement”), from συντάσσω (suntássō, “arrange together”, “to order”).

uder

The men forming the syntagma were arranged in a square of sixteen files of sixteen.

(history) A Macedonian phalanx fighting formation consisting of 256 men with long spears (sarissae).


bifacial core

(archaeology) The roughly biconical remains of a piece of worked flint from which all possible blades have been struck.


bordar

From Latin bordarius, of Teutonic origin. See board.

(history) A person ranking below villeins and above serfs in the social hierarchy of a manor, holding just enough land to feed a family (about five acres) and required to provide labour on the demesne on specified days of the week.


fluorine dating

(archaeology) A technique used to date bones by measuring the amount of fluorine absorbed from the surrounding soil.


fluorine absorption dating

en-noun

fluorine absorption dating (uncountable)

(archaeology) a technique used to date bones by measuring the amount of fluorine absorbed from the surrounding soil


archaeozoology

(archaeology) The study of relationships between humans and animals over time.

arqueozoologia

the study of relationships between humans and animals over time


cauchemar

(folklore) A demon or witch in French folklore that drains a sleeping person's energy by night.


redcap

redcaps (plural)
red cap (alternative)
red-cap (alternative)

From red + cap.
In sense of "porter", 1890s US; compare contemporary Japanese 赤帽 (akabou), Chinese 小紅帽 /小红帽 (Xiǎo Hóng Mào). On Labor Day, 1890, John Williams, an African-American railway porter, tied a red ribbon to his black uniform cap to stand out from the crowd at Grand Central Terminal. The strategy was so successful that it was soon adopted by others in the profession, leading to the synecdochic use of redcap as a term for all railway porters.

1876: Porter & Coates (pub.), Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
Lord Soulis he sat in Hermitage Castle,
And beside him Old Redcap sly; —
"Now, tell me, thou sprite, who are meikle of might,
The death that I must die?"

"What's a Brownie?" you say. Oh, it's a kind of a sort of a Bogle, but it isn't so cruel as a Redcap! What! you don't know what's a Bogle or a Redcap!

1890, Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales:

[…] the goblin had aroused the mercenary's ire. This seemed to bring out a formidable and hitherto unrecognized talent in the taciturn young man.
"Why cam' ye by my door?" The redcap brandished his pikestaff menacingly.
Redcap - A malevolent goblin easily distinguishable by their namesake red cap, fiery red eyes, claws and iron boots. They often appear as little old men, but can run very fast despite the boots. They reside in castles and watchtowers along the English-Scottish border, but will move their residence to avoid detection. They have sharp eagle’s talons which they use for weapons, but can easily be repelled simply by reading holy verse. http://www.vf11.com/legendsofvalhal/legendsofvalhal-post-814.html

2002, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Ill-Made Mute: The Bitterbynde:

After boggarts, they studied Red Caps, nasty little goblinlike creatures that lurked where there had been bloodshed […]

1999 July 8, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter; 3), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

(British, folklore) A type of evil goblin or imp.


catch and release

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(archaeology) The practice of replacing artifacts in their original location after examining and cataloguing them.


assemblage

assemblage (countable and uncountable, plural assemblages)

Borrowed from French assemblage. By surface analysis, assemble + -age.

(archaeology) A group of different artifacts found in association with one another.


lachrymatory

/ˈlækɹɪmətəɹi/

From Latin type *lacrimatorius, from lacrimare.

1658: For beside these Lachrymatories, notable Lamps with Vessels of Oyles and Aromaticall Liquors attended noble Ossuaries. — Sir Thomas Browne, Urne-Burial (Penguin 2005, p. 21)

(archaeology) A vase supposedly intended to hold tears; formerly used by archaeologists to designate certain urns found in Roman burials.


stratigraphy

stratigraphy (countable and uncountable, plural stratigraphies)

(archaeology) The layering of deposits, with newer remains overlaying older ones, forming a chronology of the site.


congest

For quotations using this term, see Citations:congest.

(Ireland, Scotland, agriculture, history) A farmer whose lands do not support him adequately.


unavailable

(US, history) A communist who operated underground and was therefore not available for a political leadership position.


Somme

(history, with The) A major battle of the First World War in 1916 in this area.


functionalism

functionalism (countable and uncountable, plural functionalisms)

/ˈfʌŋkʃənəlɪzəm/

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(history) The theory that the Holocaust was the result of a gradual escalation of decisions and procedures at the operational level (approved but not necessarily preconceived by Hitler).


primordium

It is thus vain to hope that the history of the primordia can be reduced to the progress of archeological investigation.

1997 [1991], Alexandre Grandazzi, translated by Jane Marie Todd, The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History, →ISBN, page 33:

Attempts have been made by historians of religion to distinguish between mythic orientations in time concerned with the repetition of a primordium and those concerned with the anticipation of an eschaton.

2003, David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown, 2nd edition, →ISBN, page 106:

[Joseph Smith] did not think of himself as going back to a primordium of true Christianity, as the Puritans did. In his view, there never was a golden age when religion flourished to perfection.

2008, Richard L. Bushman, Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction, →ISBN, page 5:

(history, theology) A primordial, original condition or event.


primary source

(historiography) A historical object, especially a written document, that was created at or near the time of the events studied.


secondary source

secondary source (plural secondary sources)

(historiography) A study of past events or a past author written from the perspective of a later period of time; a document that draws on one or more historical primary sources and interprets or analyses them, including documents such as newspapers whose accuracy is open to question.

secundaire bron

(historiography) document that draws on primary sources


converso

From Spanish converso. Doublet of converse.

Guillermina Jasso, a sociology professor at New York University, said Angel was “evocative of the old converso practice of taking on very Christian surnames as a way of survival in a suspicious environment.”

2007 January 20, Sam Roberts, “New Favor for a Name That Straddles Cultures”, in New York Times:

In the Inquisition's terms, both were automatically suspect by the fact that their families were conversos, and they might be seen as emerging from that maelstrom of religious energy released by the religious realignment of Spain in the 1490s.

2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, pages 672–3:

(history) A Jew or Muslim in Spain or Portugal who converted to Roman Catholicism under duress, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries.


deben

(Egyptology) A measure of weight used during the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, equivalent to about 13.6 grams.

(Egyptology) A measure of weight used during the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, equivalent to 10 kite (about 91 grams).


caters

A quarter peal of plain bob caters was rung.

(campanology) bell changes rung on nine bells


little green man

little green man (plural little green men)

/ˌlɪtəl ˌɡɹiːn ˈmæn/

կանաչ մարդուկ

humorous: space alien, Martian — see also alien

It was the pantomime of "Jack and the Bean Stalk," and as the Hallicots entered a large number of little green men were hammering on anvils in a gloomy and spacious cave.

1866 May 5, The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, page 4, column 1:

How funny to see the little green men, and the fairies in gossamer and dewdrops.

1883 March 17, The Brisbane Courier, page 3, column 3:

In an uncautions moment, once upon a time, I had informed Sweetheart that on the branches of that tree in years long past, when I used to trudge past it on foot, there used to be seen little green men, moping and mowing. So every time we pass that way Sweetheart requires the story with out variations. Not a single fairy must be added or subtracted.

1896 January 25, The Australasian, page 41, column 3:

Still the Green Isle is supposed to specialise in fairies - the little green men and fairy sprites have in spired many poems and stories of that distressful country[.]

1921 January 23, The Truth, page 8, column 4:

"Sure...the Little Green Men can't be as spiteful as some people say!"

1932 March 5, The Daily Mercury, page 14, column 2:

(folklore) A type of diminutive sprite or fairy that wears green clothing.


kistvaen

kistvaens (plural)
cistvaen (alternative)

From Welsh cistfaen, from cist (“chest”) + maen (“stone”).

It was man of the New Stone Age who first peopled this upland, leaving remains of his hut-dwellings, his pounds, dolmens, and menhirs, his kistvaens and his cooking-holes.

(archaeology) A stone coffin in the form of a pit covered with earth and surrounded by stones.


bezant

bezants (plural)
basant (alternative)
besant (alternative)
byzant (alternative)
bezaunt (alternative)

From Middle English besaunt, from Old French bezant, nominative bezanz, from Latin byzantius (“of Byzantium”).

(history) A coin made of gold or silver, minted at Byzantium and used in currency throughout mediaeval Europe.


defacement

defacement (countable and uncountable, plural defacements)

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(heraldry, vexillology) A symbol added to a flag or coat of arms to change it or make it different from another.