Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The study and description of organisms and natural objects, especially their origins, evolution, and interrelationships.
- n. A collection of facts about the development of a natural process or entity: the natural history of early hominids as revealed in the fossil record.
- n. A work or treatise containing such facts.
Wiktionary
- n. The study of all living things, especially their origins, evolution and interrelationships.
- n. The study of all natural phenomena.
- n. A treatise or similar work that summarizes the known facts of either of the above.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. a description and classification of objects in nature, as minerals, plants, animals, etc., and the phenomena which they exhibit to the senses.
- adj. in its broadest sense, a history or description of nature as a whole, including the sciences of botany, zoölogy, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, chemistry, and physics. In recent usage the term is often restricted to the sciences of botany and zoölogy collectively, and sometimes to the science of zoology alone.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the scientific study of plants or animals (more observational than experimental) usually published in popular magazines rather than in academic journals
Examples
“It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us, -- when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
“While Nora had worked her way methodically through the natural history collection, Tríona had found her own place in these stacks—a far, quiet corner where she was surrounded by books about gods and monsters, elves and mermaids, a whole universe of shape-shifters.”
“The Bestiary is a moralizing natural history of ancient origin, based on the Greek Physiologus.”
“Thirteen years later, a British natural history magazine explained, “It is this pashm of the goat of these regions which affords the materials for the celebrated Kashmir shawls.””
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“As Mr COLLINS, who has written, in recent years, an interesting work on this topic of much use to archæologists as a book of data,105 points out, the great sources of animal symbolism were the famous Physiologus and other natural history books of the Middle Ages (generally called "Bestiaries"), and the Bible, mystically understood.”
“We are pleased to read in the natural history of the country, of the "pine, larch, spruce, and silver fir," which cover the southern face ofthe Himmaleh range; of the "gooseberry, raspberry, strawberry," which from an imminent temperate zone overlook the torrid plains.”
““Besides the paintings and the Raphael loggia,” she wrote, referring to her four thousand old masters and the Raphael fresco copies, “my museum in the Hermitage contains thirty-eight thousand books; there are four rooms filled with books and prints, ten thousand engraved gems, roughly ten thousand drawings and a natural history collection that fills two large galleries.””
“In a quiet corner of the New Forest, he established a camp for the detailed study and mapping of the natural history of a stretch of the wild forest woodland, bog and heath surrounding Beaulieu Road by his Biology sixth form.”
“The natural history of B. irregularis and its population dynamics on Guam, not to mention the long-term implications for the ecosystem, are still largely unknown.”
“Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world, under the Command of Capt.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘natural history’.
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museum words
words from work
provenance, accession, deaccession, conservation, preparator, registrar, curator, jargon, Oz clip, bell plate, stretcher, ornate and 115 more...
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ENVI - Collocations MNOPQ
macaw shipment, macerate sewage s..., macerate sewage s..., machine code, machine cycle, machine language, machine making, machine manufacture, machine rate, machine time, macroeconomic goal, macroeconomic policy and 5152 more...
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