silurian

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: Si=lu=ri=an

CIDE DICTIONARY

silurian, a. [From L. Silures, a people who anciently inhabited a part of England and Wales.].

 Of or pertaining to the country of the ancient Silures; -- a term applied to the earliest of the Paleozoic eras, and also to the strata of the era, because most plainly developed in that country.  [1913 Webster]
" The Silurian formation, so named by Murchison, is divided into the Upper Silurian and Lower Silurian. The lower part of the Lower Silurian, with some underlying beds, is now separated under the name Cambrian, first given by Sedwick. Recently the term Ordovician has been proposed for the Lower Silurian, leawing the original word to apply only to the Upper Silurian."  [1913 Webster]

silurian, n. 

 The Silurian age.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

silurian, adj. & n. Geol.
--adj. of or relating to the third period of the Palaeozoic era with evidence of the first fish and land plants, and the formation of mountains and new land areas.

Usage

Cf. Appendix II.
--n. this period or system.

Etymology

L Silures, a people of ancient SE Wales

ROGET THESAURUS

silurian

Oldness

N oldness, age, antiquity, cobwebs of antiquity, maturity, decline, decay, senility, seniority, eldership, primogeniture, archaism, thing of the past, relic of the past, megatherium, Sanskrit, tradition, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law, old, ancient, antique, of long standing, time-honored, venerable, elder, eldest, firstborn, prime, primitive, primeval, primigenous, paleolontological, paleontologic, paleoanthropological, paleoanthropic, paleolithic, primordial, primordinate, aboriginal, diluvian, antediluvian, protohistoric, prehistoric, antebellum, colonial, precolumbian, patriarchal, preadamite, paleocrystic, fossil, paleozoolical, paleozoic, preglacial, antemundane, archaic, classic, medieval, Pre-Raphaelite, ancestral, black-letter, immemorial, traditional, prescriptive, customary, whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contr, inveterate, rooted, antiquated, of other times, rococo, of the old school, after-age, obsolete, out of date, out of fashion, out of it, stale, old-fashioned, behind the age, old-world, exploded, gone out, gone by, passe, run out, senile, time worn, crumbling, secondhand, old as the hills, old as Methuselah, old as Adam, old as history, Archeozoic, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Paleogene, Neocene, Quaternary, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent, since the world was made, since the year one, since the days of Methuselah, vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.