of or denoting a period of mountain building in NW Europe in the Palaeozoic era
noun
3. literary
a native or inhabitant of Scotland
Caledonian in American English
(ˌkælɪˈdouniən)
noun
1.
a native or inhabitant of Caledonia
adjective
2.
of or pertaining to Caledonia
Word origin
[1900–05; caledoni(a) + -an]This word is first recorded in the period 1900–05. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: burnout, desensitize, elder statesman, hydroplane, throwaway-an is a suffix occurring originally in adjectives borrowed from Latin, formed from nounsdenoting places (Roman; urban) or persons (Augustan), and now productively forming English adjectives by extension of the Latin pattern.Attached to geographical names, it denotes provenance or membership (American; Chicagoan), the latter sense now extended to membership in social classes, religious denominations,etc., in adjectives formed from various kinds of noun bases (Episcopalian; pedestrian; Puritan; Republican) and membership in zoological taxa (acanthocephalan; crustacean). Attached to personal names, it has the additional senses “contemporary with” (Elizabethan; Jacobean) or “proponent of” (Hegelian; Freudian) the person specified by the noun base. It also occurs in a set of personal nouns,mainly loanwords from French, denoting one who engages in, practices, or works withthe referent of the base noun (comedian; grammarian; historian; theologian)
Examples of 'Caledonian' in a sentence
Caledonian
It was after that that he left for Canterbury in the helicopter provided by British Caledonian Airways.