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triassic

UK/tɹaɪˈæs.ɪk/US/tɹaɪˈæs.ɪk/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,594 of 15,258mostly written

Triassic means of the earliest of the three ages of great reptiles. The Triassic period, Triassic rocks, late Triassic.

It ran from about two hundred and fifty to two hundred million years ago and opened just after the largest extinction the Earth has known. The first dinosaurs and the first mammals both appear in it, which makes it a period of beginnings rather than of giants.

Definitions of triassic

  1. 1adjectivetriassicOf the earliest of the three ages of great reptiles.C1

    “The museum displays fossil footprints from Triassic rocks.”

triassic is a geological period.

Where it comes from

  1. Ancient Greek

    τριάς — triad

  2. German

    Trias

  3. English

    Triassic

  4. English, today

    triassic

Built from

  • Trias · English — three-layered geologic strata between the Permian and Jurassic

Triassic comes from Trias (“three-layered geologic strata between the Permian and Jurassic”) < German Trias < Ancient Greek τριάς (“triad”), -ic. Coined in 1841 by geologist Friedrich August von Alberti (1795–1878).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Dinosaurs & Prehistory

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