Fossil, definition

Fossil,





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9 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Fossil \Fos"sil\, n.
     1. A substance dug from the earth. [Obs.]
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: Formerly all minerals were called fossils, but the word
           is now restricted to express the remains of animals and


           plants found buried in the earth. --Ure.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Paleon.) The remains of an animal or plant found in
        stratified rocks. Most fossils belong to extinct species,
        but many of the later ones belong to species still living.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. A person whose views and opinions are extremely
        antiquated; one whose sympathies are with a former time
        rather than with the present. [Colloq.]
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Fossil \Fos"sil\, a. [L. fossilis, fr. fodere to dig: cf. F.
     fossile. See {Fosse}.]
     1. Dug out of the earth; as, fossil coal; fossil salt.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. preserved from a previous geological age; as, fossil water
        from deep wells; -- usually implying that the object so
        described has had its substance modified by long residence
        in the ground, but also used (as with fossil water) in
        cases where chemical composition is not altered.
        [PJC]
  
     3. (Paleon.) Like or pertaining to fossils; contained in
        rocks, whether petrified or not; as, fossil plants,
        shells.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Fossil copal}, a resinous substance, first found in the blue
        clay at Highgate, near London, and apparently a vegetable
        resin, partly changed by remaining in the earth.
  
     {Fossil cork}, {Fossil flax}, {Fossil paper}, or {Fossil
     wood}, varieties of amianthus.
  
     {Fossil farina}, a soft carbonate of lime.
  
     {Fossil ore}, fossiliferous red hematite. --Raymond.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  fossil
       adj : characteristic of a fossil
       n 1: someone whose style is out of fashion [syn: {dodo}, {fogy},
            {fogey}]
       2: 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

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  99 Moby Thesaurus words for "fossil":
     Methuselah, afterglow, afterimage, ancient manuscript,
     antediluvian, antique, antiquity, archaism, artifact, back number,
     balance, butt, butt end, candle ends, cave painting, chaff,
     conservative, dad, debris, detritus, dodo, elder, end, eolith,
     fag end, filings, fogy, fud, fuddy-duddy, granny, has-been,
     holdover, husks, leavings, leftovers, longhair, matriarch,
     mezzolith, microlith, mid-Victorian, mossback, neolith,
     odds and ends, offscourings, old believer, old crock, old dodo,
     old fogy, old liner, old man, old poop, old woman, old-timer, orts,
     paleolith, parings, patriarch, petrification, petrified forest,
     petrified wood, petroglyph, plateaulith, pop, pops, rags,
     reactionary, refuse, regular old fogy, relic, relics, reliquiae,
     remainder, remains, remnant, residue, residuum, rest, roach,
     rubbish, ruin, ruins, rump, sawdust, scourings, scraps, shadow,
     shavings, square, starets, stick-in-the-mud, straw, stubble, stump,
     survival, sweepings, trace, traditionalist, vestige, waste
  
  

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  FOSSIL
       Fido Opus Seadog Standard Interface Layer
       
       

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  fossil n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only
     in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to
     break compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as default base for
     string escapes in {C}, in spite of the better match of hexadecimal to
     ASCII and modern byte-addressable architectures. See {dusty deck}. 2.
     More restrictively, a feature with past but no present utility. Example:
     the force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 and {BSD} Unix tty driver,
     designed for use with monocase terminals. (In a perversion of the usual
     backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually been
     expanded and renamed in some later USG Unix releases as the IUCLC and
     OLCUC bits.) 3. The FOSSIL (Fido/Opus/Seadog Standard Interface Level)
     driver specification for serial-port access to replace the {brain-dead}
     routines in the IBM PC ROMs. Fossils are used by most MS-DOS {BBS}
     software in preference to the `supported' ROM routines, which do not
     support interrupt-driven operation or setting speeds above 9600; the use
     of a semistandard FOSSIL library is preferable to the {bare metal}
     serial port programming otherwise required. Since the FOSSIL
     specification allows additional functionality to be hooked in, drivers
     that use the {hook} but do not provide serial-port access themselves are
     named with a modifier, as in `video fossil'.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  fossil
       
          1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only
          in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so
          as not to break compatibility.  Example: the retention of
          {octal} as default base for string escapes in {C}, in spite of
          the better match of {hexadecimal} to ASCII and modern
          byte-addressable architectures.  See {dusty deck}.
       
          2. More restrictively, a feature with past but no present
          utility.  Example: the force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7
          and {BSD} Unix tty driver, designed for use with monocase
          terminals.  (In a perversion of the usual
          backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually
          been expanded and renamed in some later {USG Unix} releases as
          the IUCLC and OLCUC bits.)
       
          3. The FOSSIL (Fido/Opus/Seadog Standard Interface Level)
          driver specification for serial-port access to replace the
          {brain-dead} routines in the IBM PC ROMs.  Fossils are used by
          most {MS-DOS} {BBS} software in preference to the "supported"
          ROM routines, which do not support interrupt-driven operation
          or setting speeds above 9600; the use of a semistandard FOSSIL
          library is preferable to the {bare metal} serial port
          programming otherwise required.  Since the FOSSIL
          specification allows additional functionality to be hooked in,
          drivers that use the {hook} but do not provide serial-port
          access themselves are named with a modifier, as in "video
          fossil".
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
       

From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:

  Fossil, OR (city, FIPS 26650)
    Location: 44.99841 N, 120.21319 W
    Population (1990): 399 (224 housing units)
    Area: 2.0 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)

From U.S. Gazetteer Places (2000) [gaz-place]:

  Fossil, OR -- U.S. city in Oregon
     Population (2000):    469
     Housing Units (2000): 245
     Land area (2000):     0.763277 sq. miles (1.976878 sq. km)
     Water area (2000):    0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
     Total area (2000):    0.763277 sq. miles (1.976878 sq. km)
     FIPS code:            26650
     Located within:       Oregon (OR), FIPS 41
     Location:             44.999595 N, 120.214239 W
     ZIP Codes (1990):    
     Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
     Headwords:
      Fossil, OR
      Fossil
  

















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