TERTIARY • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Tertiary

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/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

Share |

"Tertiary" Quotes from Famous Books

... and "tertiary treatment" are becoming common terms nowadays. They refer to any of a considerable array of additional or intensified processes aimed at attaining levels of purification that would have cost an impossible price a few years ago. Most of them are still experimental ...

— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... in fact gypsum reformed, the change brought about by baking being merely loss of water of crystallization. The beds of gypsum of most importance both formerly and at the present time in the plaster manufacture occur in the neighborhood of Paris in the lower tertiary formation. Different beds differ (1) in respect of character and quantity of admixed materials and (2) in the structure of the gypsum itself. With regard to the first point, some deposits contain a notable ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... is not only an enamel of emerald, but is literally crowded with those crimson anemones which might well have called forth the great saying touching Solomon in all his glory. And even what rock there is is coloured with a thousand secondary and tertiary tints, as are the walls and streets of the Holy City which is built from the quarries of these hills. For the old stones of the old Jerusalem are as precious as the precious stones of the New Jerusalem; and at certain ...

— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... and practiced guides. It is a striking fact that its upper rocks have been found to be marine calcareous beds. That proud eminence has not stood thus in the clouds for all time; it was once buried fathoms deep under the Tertiary ocean. ...

— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... The salts contained in these deposits are mainly borax, ulexite, and colemanite. The sources of these materials are perhaps deposits of the type mentioned in the last paragraph, or, in California, certain Tertiary borate deposits described below. Whatever their source, the borates are carried in solution by the waters of occasional rains to shallow basins, which become covered with temporary thin sheets of water or "playa lakes." ...

— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com