TERTIARY PERIOD • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Tertiary period

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/tˈərʃəri pˈɪriəd/ Listen

adjective

Tertiary adj.

Being of the third formation, order, or rank; third; as, a tertiary use of a word.

(Chem.) Possessing some quality in the third degree; having been subjected to the substitution of three atoms or radicals; as, a tertiary alcohol, amine, or salt. Cf. Primary, and Secondary.

(Geol.) Later than, or subsequent to, the Secondary.

(Zool.) Growing on the innermost joint of a bird's wing; tertial; said of quills.

Tertiary age. (Geol.) See under Age, 8.

Tertiary color, a color produced by the mixture of two secondaries. "The so-called tertiary colors are citrine, russet, and olive."

Tertiary period. (Geol.)

(a)

The first period of the age of mammals, or of the Cenozoic era.

(b)

The rock formation of that period; called also Tertiary formation. See the Chart of Geology.

Tertiary syphilis (Med.), the third and last stage of syphilis, in which it invades the bones and internal organs.

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Etymology of 'Tertiary period'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tertiary period" Quotes from Famous Books

... the only representatives of the class during the paleozoic ages; that macrourans prevailed in the same manner during the secondary period; and that brachyurans make their appearance only in the tertiary period. Do you discover in your results any connection between such facts and the present distribution of crustacea? There is certainly one feature in their classification which must appear very striking,—that, taken on a large scale, the organic ...

— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... that the equine quadrupeds of the Quaternary period do not differ from existing Equidae in any more important respect than these last differ from one another; and he would know that it is, nevertheless, a well-established fact that, in the course of the Tertiary period, the equine quadrupeds have undergone a series of changes exactly such as the doctrine of evolution requires. Hence sound analogical reasoning justifies the expectation that, when we obtain the remains of Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene Anthropidae, they will present ...

— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel

... "During the tertiary period elephants were very numerous and were distributed over Europe, Asia as far as the Arctic Ocean, North America and Africa. By the remains excavated, many species of extinct elephants are now distinguished, among which one, known under the ...

— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... Tertiary period the whole valley of Mexico was one great lake. Whether the proportion of water to land had adjusted itself before the country was inhabited, or whether during historical times the lakes were still gradually diminishing by the excess of evaporation over the quantity of water supplied by rain and ...

— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... sketched some of the reasons suggestive of such a theory of derivation of species, reasons which gave it plausibility, and even no small probability, as applied to our actual world and to changes occurring since the latest tertiary period. We are well pleased at this moment to find that the conclusions we were arriving at in this respect are sustained by the very high authority and impartial judgment of Pictet, the Swiss paleontologist. In his review of Darwins book[III-5] ...

— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

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