Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Wedge-shaped.
- adj. Being a character or characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements and used in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian writing.
- adj. Relating to, composed in, or using such characters.
- adj. Anatomy Of, relating to, or being a wedge-shaped bone or cartilage.
- n. Writing typified by the use of characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements.
- n. Anatomy A wedge-shaped bone, especially one of three such bones in the tarsus of the foot.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having the shape or form of wedge; cuneate. Specifically— Applied to the wedge-shaped or arrow-headed characters, or to the inscriptions in such characters, of the ancient Mesopotamians and Persians. See
arrow-headed . - In entomology, said of parts or joints which are attached by a thin but broad base, and thicken gradually to a suddenly truncated apex, In anatomy, applied to certain wedge-shaped carpal and tarsal bones. See phrases below.
- Occupied with or versed in the wedge-shaped characters, or the inscriptions written in them: as, “a cuneiform scholar,”
- n. A cuneiform bone: as, the three cuneiforms of the foot.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having the form of wedge; wedge-shaped.
- adj. Written in the cuneiform writing system.
- adj. Relating to, or versed in, the ancient cuneiform writing system or its inscriptions.
- n. An ancient Mesopotamian writing system, adapted within several language families, originating as pictograms in Sumer around the 30th century BC, evolving into more abstract and characteristic wedge shapes formed by a blunt reed stylus on clay tablets.
- n. anatomy A wedge-shaped bone, especially a cuneiform bone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Wedge-shaped; ; -- especially applied to the wedge-shaped or arrowheaded characters of ancient Persian and Assyrian inscriptions. See arrowheaded.
- adj. Pertaining to, or versed in, the ancient wedge-shaped characters, or the inscriptions in them.
- n. The wedge-shaped characters used in ancient Persian and Assyrian inscriptions.
- n. One of the three tarsal bones supporting the first, second third metatarsals. They are usually designated as external, middle, and internal, or ectocuniform, mesocuniform, and entocuniform, respectively.
- n. One of the carpal bones usually articulating with the ulna; -- called also
pyramidal andulnare .
WordNet 3.0
- adj. shaped like a wedge
- n. an ancient wedge-shaped script used in Mesopotamia and Persia
- adj. of or relating to the tarsal bones (or other wedge-shaped bones)
Etymologies
- From French cunéiforme or New Latin cuneiformis, from Classical Latin cuneus ("wedge") + -iform. (Wiktionary)
- Latin cuneus, wedge + -form. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but evolved to include phonetic elements by the”
“Insist on keeping your secret cookie recipes written in cuneiform?”
“(On the "Cyrus Cylinder," the Persian King inscribed in cuneiform the world's first known "Charter of Human Rights.")”
The Huffington Post: Richard C. Morais: What Steve Forbes's Books Teach Us
“The shape of these signs is that of a wedge, hence the name cuneiform (from the Latin cuneus, "a wedge").”
“Nor must we forget the additional testimony of three clay cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar, inscribed in cuneiform characters, and now in the National Egyptian Museum.”
“What we call cuneiform is essentially a cursive hand.”
“Barnes makes it the candlestick taken from the temple of Jerusalem, the nearness of the writing to it intimating that the rebuke was directed against the sacrilege. upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace -- Written in cuneiform letters on slabs on the walls, and on the very bricks, are found the perpetually recurring recital of titles, victories, and exploits, to remind the spectator at every point of the regal greatness.”
“This first writing system, cuneiform -- from the Latin word cuneus, for wedge -- was invented by the region's first powerful culture, the non-Semitic Sumerians, during the fourth millennium BC.”
“On the outside of the door was an inscription in Persian cuneiform that the priest interpreted for Alexander:”
“The script, called cuneiform, marked the beginning of the long history of Western writing systems, and it is wonderfully ironic to think that literature was thus a by-product of a numerical notation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cuneiform’.
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probablyankita's list
Words are all I have to take your heart away
apartheid, techno-klutz, logorrheic, gordian knot, anodyne, odor of sanctity, finders keepers, foot-in-mouth dis..., dutch uncle, masquerade, smoke signals, furtive glance and 320 more...
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
caballine, cabas, cable, caboched, cabochon, caboose, cabotage, cabré, cabrie, cabriole, cabriolet, cacaesthesia and 1298 more...
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Not 250 Spelling Words Again
Yet more spelling words for intermediate to advanced spellers.
kyoodle, heimin, feis, menarche, cordwainer, gherao, zythum, accidie, anastomosis, boustrophedon, oleum, penicillin and 238 more...
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The Request Line
This is the place to add words you'd like Charles Harrington Elster to pronounce for you!
swingeing, affiant, dahlia, hydrangea, re, clematis, Nabokov, casu marzu, schadenfreudgeon, nefarious, mewl, manteion and 170 more...
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Scribblative ✍
Scrawlings, notes, odd writings, and messages.
doodle, notation, scrawl, tracing, scribble, latrinalia, sketch, squiggle, notelet, post-it, chicken scratch, caligraphy and 88 more...
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known words
words wot i already knew
antisyzygy, calenture, shill, saudade, sehnsucht, squonk, steganographic, anomie, wiggy, grok, hermeneutics, agrise and 206 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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polymorph's Words
pornerastic, yeaux, enantiadromia, synchronicity, transubstantiation, sensimilla, slough, scaphism, symbiosis, prolix, orgiastic, cryptogamic and 245 more...
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Logophile, The Back Page (AKA: just c...
node, nexus, locus, toroidal, ivory, kestrel, lyre, muscat, caldera, tapestry, codex, paragon and 103 more...
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je les adore!
fusillade, foal, celestial, abattoir, byzantium, berlin, casablanca, babylon, balkans, albion, avalon, between the devil... and 471 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (C)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
cacophony, cad, cajole, calamity, camomile, camphor, candlemas, candy apple, canopy, canticle, caparison, caravan and 304 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
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My List
A list of words that I have generated over time.
cairn, cacodaemoniacal, abash, abject, abjure, abstemious, abhor, abnegate, abnegation, abscond, abstruse, acclivity and 702 more...
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mandarine's Words
antepenultimate, metonymy, synecdoche, pop, kern, inherit, clique, scrumptious, macerate, murmur, kerning, veranda and 1068 more...
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justin's Words
braii, boerewors, lekker, viva, pap, lipodystrophy, lacticacidosis, sharp, chakalaka, defaulter, eish, oof and 256 more...
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Having: C; m; e
Goodies pulled from a list I've compiled of most-every word having these letters in common — It's going take to take a long, long time to actually get through (and I may want to extend it lat...
chamber, chimney, compesce, imperch, ipom�ic, lambency, premier cru, recumbence, simnelcake, succumbence, umbeschew, almacle and 631 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cuneiform.
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