Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or being the period of geologic time from about 488 to 443 million years ago, the second period of the Paleozoic Era. It is characterized by the appearance of primitive fishes and by the supercontinent Gondwana. Some evidence suggests that the first land plants also appeared at this time.
  • noun The Ordovician Period.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An epithet applied by C. Lapworth to a series of rocks not capable of exact separation from those underlying or overlying them, either stratigraphically or paleontologically, but which have been the subject of much discussion among English geologists.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Geol.) Of or pertaining to a division of the Silurian formation, corresponding in general to the Lower Silurian of most authors, exclusive of the Cambrian.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective geology Of a geologic period within the Paleozoic era; comprises lower, middle and upper epochs from about 488 to 443 million years ago.
  • proper noun geology The Ordovician period.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun from 500 million to 425 million years ago; conodonts and ostracods and algae and seaweeds

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin Ordovicēs, an ancient Celtic tribe of Wales, from Celtic Ordovices; see weik- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • Many crinoids are primarily nocturnal but they are seen during the day with their arms rolled up. living fossil existing virtually unchanged from the ancestors in the geologic age known as the Ordovician Period, but there are many more fossils formed from the Paleozoic Era.

    CreationWiki - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • The ancient Ordovician wind carried the first land plant spores to barren and empty places, starting the fantastic unfolding of diversity in plant forms, leading to the first flowering plants roughly 140 million years ago and so on to more than 400,000 species today.

    Bird Cloud Annie Proulx 2011

  • We climbed over the craggy outcrops of Cambro-Ordovician age Fort Burnside Formation and Jamestown Formation, crazily tilted beds of phyllite and slate and siltstone and stark white veins of calcite.

    "Into a light that lingers." greygirlbeast 2010

  • I've been able to determine it came from one of three marines facies, the Galena, Decora, or Platville formations (Middle to Late Ordovician).

    "Steampunk happens when goths discover brown." greygirlbeast 2010

  • The package also contained a chunk of Ordovician limestone, riddled with the fossil remains of gastropods and brachiopods, from her backyard near Madison, Wisconsin.

    "Steampunk happens when goths discover brown." greygirlbeast 2010

  • Mason is excited because we might find things that were alive in the Ordovician Period ... and, like, he could instantly name three or four creatures alive then.

    Day in the Life of an Idiot lyda222 2009

  • The ancient Ordovician wind carried the first land plant spores to barren and empty places, starting the fantastic unfolding of diversity in plant forms, leading to the first flowering plants roughly 140 million years ago and so on to more than 400,000 species today.

    Bird Cloud Annie Proulx 2011

  • That means the rocks are quite a bit older than the Cambrian and Ordovician slate and phyllite at Beavertail, two miles to the southwest.

    Of Books and the Sea greygirlbeast 2010

  • Like I said, he knows more about the Ordovician period than I do, so he was quite content to dig a few holes and admire the clam shells and petrified "seaweed" that we found.

    Day in the Life of an Idiot lyda222 2009

  • The package also contained a chunk of Ordovician limestone, riddled with the fossil remains of gastropods and brachiopods, from her backyard near Madison, Wisconsin.

    "Steampunk happens when goths discover brown." greygirlbeast 2010

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