ammonite
(ˈæmənaɪt)
[f. mod.L. ammōnītes (after ætītes, asphaltītes, etc.: see -ite), f. by Bruguière on the med.L. name Cornu Ammonis ‘Ammon's horn,’ given to these fossils from their resemblance to the involuted horn of Jupiter Ammon. At first used as L., with pl. Ammonitæ.]
1. A fossil genus of Cephalopods, consisting of whorled chambered shells, containing many species; once supposed to be coiled snakes petrified, and hence called Snake-stones. (Scott Marmion ii. xiii.)
| 1758 Phil. Trans. L. 786 In this rock..the Ammonitæ, or Snake-stones, as they are commonly called, are found. 1798 La Perouse's Voy. round World III. 299 A very close analogy between the ammonite and nautilus. 1816 W. Smith Strata Ident. 1 The Muscles and Ammonites found in Ironstone. 1847 Tennyson Princess Prol. 15 Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time. 1854 H. Miller Sch. & Schm. viii. 77 In a nodular mass of bluish-gray limestone..I laid open my first-found ammonite. |
† 2. Formerly used for ammites, i.e. oolite. Obs.
| 1706 Phillips, Ammonites, a sort of stone call'd the lesser Spawn-stone. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Ammites is the same with what is otherwise called Ammonites. |