ammonite

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   one of the coiled chambered fossil shells of extinct mollusks

   The word ammonite appears in scientific writing with a precise technical sense.

2. 2
   noun

   Any of an extinct group of cephalopods of the subclass Ammonoidea; a fossil shell of such an animal.

   1927, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados Mysteries There's more interest to my mind in a neolithic scraper than in a whole show-case-full of ammonites and belemnites.

3. 3
   noun

   An explosive prepared from a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate; a form of amatol, popular in Eastern Europe and China.

   The word ammonite appears in scientific writing with a precise technical sense.

From French ammonite, from Latin Ammōnis (cornū) (“horn of Ammon”), as it was called by Pliny the Elder in reference to coiling ram horns used to symbolise the Egyptian god Amun. Equivalent to Ammon + -ite.

Topics