TERTIARY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tertiary

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/tˈərʃəri/ /tˈərʃiˌɛri/ Listen

adjective

Tertiary adj.

1.

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

2.

(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.

3.

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

4.

(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.

noun

Tertiary n. (pl. tertiaries)

1.

(R. C. Ch.) A member of the Third Order in any monastic system; as, the Franciscan tertiaries; the Dominican tertiaries; the Carmelite tertiaries. See Third Order, under Third.

2.

(Geol.) The Tertiary era, period, or formation.

3.

(Zool.) One of the quill feathers which are borne upon the basal joint of the wing of a bird.

See images of 'Tertiary'

Etymology of 'Tertiary'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tertiary" Quotes from Famous Books

... must trace the geology of Hampshire, and indeed, of East Dorset. You must try to form a conception of how the land was shaped in miocene times, before that tremendous upheaval which reared the chalk cliffs at Freshwater upright, lifting the tertiary beds upon their northern slopes. You must ask- -Was there not land to the south of the Isle of Wight in those ages, and for ages after; and what was its extent and shape? You must ask—When was the gap between ...

— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... Those ancients must have had cisterns; inconceivable that springs should ever have issued from this limestone crag. You can see the women of to-day fetching water from below, from a spot which I was too lazy to investigate, where perhaps the soft tertiary rock leans upon this impervious stuff and allows the liquid to escape into the open. An unclean place is Bellegra, and loud, like all these Sabine villages, with the confused crying of little children. That multiple ...

— Alone • Norman Douglas

... the neck. The arm and hand were paralyzed, and the woman suffered great dyspnea. There was at first a grave emphysematous condition due to the laceration of several broken ribs. There was also suffusion and ecchymosis about the neck and shoulder. Although complicated with tertiary syphilis, the woman made a fair recovery, and eight weeks later she walked into a doctor's office. Many similar and equally wonderful injuries to the spine ...

— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... make the circuit of the plateau country, he could so conduct his route that for three-fourths of the time he would be treading upon volcanic materials and could pitch his camp upon them every night. The oldest eruptions do not go back of Tertiary time, while some are so recent as probably to come within the historic period—within three or ...

— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... more correctly speaking highly carbonized lignite of the Tertiary age, and analogous to Japanese coal. Batan Island, off the south-east coast of Luzon Island, is said to have the finest lignite beds in ...

— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

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