fossil

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The mineralized remains of an animal or plant.

   With the permission of the Keeper of the fossil collection, therefore, the specimen was subjected to a further careful removal of the matrix in the requisite directions.

2. 2
   noun

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

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

3. 3
   noun

   An extremely old or outdated person.

   I do not want to convey any disrespectful notion or slight when I call those good and learned men fossils, but my experience is that people are apt to fossilise even at a University if they follow the same paths too persistently.

4. 4
   adj

   characteristic of a fossil

5. 5
   noun

   the remains (or an impression) of a plant or animal that existed in a past geological age and that has been excavated from the soil

6. 6
   noun

   someone whose style is out of fashion

7. 7
   noun

   A fossil word.

8. 8
   noun

   Anything extremely old, extinct, or outdated.

Etymology

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