English edit

Etymology edit

fossil +‎ -i- +‎ -ferous

Pronunciation edit

Adjective edit

fossiliferous (comparative more fossiliferous, superlative most fossiliferous)

  1. Containing fossils.
    • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Fossil Whale”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 506:
      Having already described him [the whale] in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archæological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view.
    • 1951, Max B Payne, Type Moreno formation and overlying Eocene strata on the West Side of the San Joaquin Valley, Fresno and Merced Counties, California[1], page 3:
      The area contains a great thickness of well exposed fossiliferous, marine strata of uppermost Cretaceous and Eocene age, and it is felt that the most continuous and complete section may be found here.

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