cretaceous, a. and n.
(kriːˈteɪʃəs)
Also with cap. initial in Geol. senses.
[f. L. crētāce-us chalk-like, chalky, f. crēta chalk: see -aceous.]
A. adj.
1. Of the nature of chalk; chalky.
| c 1675 Grew (J.), The cretaceous salt. 1708 J. Philips Cyder i. 54 Nor from the sable Ground expect Success Nor from cretaceous, stubborn and jejune. 1710 T. Fuller Pharm. Extemp. 119 A cretaceous Electuary. 1841–71 T. R. Jones Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4) 787 The lining membrane..secretes cretaceous matter. |
b. Chalk-like. humorous.
| 1808 Syd. Smith Plymley's Lett. vi, I love not the cretaceous and incredible countenance of his colleague. |
2. Geol. Belonging to or found in the Chalk formation. So cretaceous group, cretaceous series, cretaceous system. cretaceous period: the period during which these strata were deposited.
| 1832 H. T. De la Beche Geol. Man. (ed. 2) 307 The cretaceous rocks of south-eastern England. 1854 F. C. Bakewell Geol. 56 The chalk and its associated sands have been termed the ‘cretaceous system’. 1863 Lyell Antiq. Man 335 During the oolitic and cretaceous periods. |
B. n. (usu. with the). Geol. The Cretaceous system or period.
| 1851 Lyell Man. Elem. Geol. (ed. 3) xvii. 209 (heading) Upper Cretaceous. i. Maestricht beds and Faxoe lime⁓stone. 1906 Chamberlin & Salisbury Geol. III. 160 In the Black Hills, the Cretaceous has in some places a thickness of no more than 1000 feet. Ibid. 162 The Appalachian mountains,..which had been reduced to a peneplain by the close of the Cretaceous. 1910 Encycl. Brit. VII. 415/1 There is a very general unconformity and break between the Lower and Upper Cretaceous. Ibid., With the opening of the Cretaceous in Europe there commenced a period of marine transgression. 1960 L. D. Stamp Britain's Struct. (ed. 5) xii. 139 These strata form..transition beds between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary. |
creˈtaceously adv., in the manner of chalk.
| 1864 in Webster. 1882 Syd. Soc. Lex., Cretaceously-pruinose, having a white shining incrustation. |