Devonian
/dɛˈvəʊnɪən
/ /dɪˈvəʊnɪən/adjective
1Relating to Devon.Coming up in the world: The old Devonian seadog William Burroughs, second in command to Cadiz in 1587 and a ship's commander against the Armada the following year....
- I still had the handful of yoghurt from the photo shoot and even though the yoghurt had curdled, this congealed dairy product was a feast to these backward Devonian fooles!
- Tucked away in Devonian hills as green as the heart of a lettuce is Dartington Hall, home of Dartington international summer school.
2 Geology Relating to or denoting the fourth period of the Palaeozoic era, between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods.For example, the various Lower Palaeozoic and Devonian formations on the stable interior platform of North America have presented many problems of correlation largely because the different facies are diachronous....
- Athyrids were most abundant during the Silurian and Devonian periods, but still remained common during the early Carboniferous, and even as late as the Permian.
- The plate tectonic model of Loeschke et al. invokes crustal rifting during the Ordovician and formation of a Silurian to Devonian ocean that underwent closure during the Devonian-Carboniferous.
The Devonian period lasted from about 409 to 363 million years ago. During this period fish became abundant, the first amphibians evolved, and the first forests appeared.
noun
1A native or inhabitant of Devon.The Devonians play their biggest Scottish show to date....
- The impact of scientific rather than practical proposals has produced a fairly unworkable cocktail of measures which Devonians are calling a ‘complete shambles’.
- They performed with gusto to almost thirty drunk Devonians.
2 (the Devonian) Geology The Devonian period or the system of rocks deposited during it.
