ammonite

UK/ˈæ.məˌnaɪt/US/ˈæ.məˌnaɪt/

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Other forms: ammonites

An ammonite is a spiral-shelled sea creature found in rock. A fossil ammonite.

The animal lived in the last chamber and used the rest to control how deep it floated. An ammonite is the commonest large fossil on much of the English coast.

Definitions of ammonite

1nounammoniteA spiral-shelled sea creature found in rock.C1
“The ammonite came out of the cliff whole.”

ammonite is a fossil.

Where it comes from

From Latin cornu Ammonis, the horn of Ammon, an Egyptian god shown with coiled ram's horns.

French
ammonite
English, today
ammonite

Borrowed from French ammonite. 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Dinosaurs & Prehistory

Practise this word

ammonite in the wild

Because ammonites and their close relatives are extinct, little is known about their way of life.
Ammonoidea
The Ancyloceratina were a diverse suborder of ammonite most closely related to the ammonites of order Lytoceratina.
Ancyloceratina
Paired aptychi have, on rare occasions, been found at or within the aperture of ammonite shells.
Aptychus
The aptychus was usually composed of calcite, whereas the ammonite shell was aragonite.
Aptychus
Ammonitida, or true ammonites, are an order of ammonoid cephalopods that lived from the Jurassic through Paleocene time periods, commonly with intricate ammonitic sutures.
Ammonitida

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

← Vocabulary