 9 definitions found
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
fossil
adjective: characteristic of a fossil
noun
1: someone whose style is out of fashion [syn: {dodo}, {fogy},
{fogey}]
2: the remains (or an impression) of a plant or animal that
existed in a past geological age and that has been
excavated from the soil
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Fossil \Fos"sil\, noun
1. A substance dug from the earth. [Obs.]
Note: Formerly all minerals were called fossils, but the word
is now restricted to express the remains of animals and
plants found buried in the earth. --Ure.
2. (Paleon.) The remains of an animal or plant found in
stratified rocks. Most fossils belong to extinct species,
but many of the later ones belong to species still living.
3. A person whose views and opinions are extremely
antiquated; one whose sympathies are with a former time
rather than with the present. [Colloq.]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Fossil \Fos"sil\, adjective [L. fossilis, fr. fodere to dig: cf. F.
fossile. See {Fosse}.]
1. Dug out of the earth; as, fossil coal; fossil salt.
2. preserved from a previous geological age; as, fossil water
from deep wells; -- usually implying that the object so
described has had its substance modified by long residence
in the ground, but also used (as with fossil water) in
cases where chemical composition is not altered.
[PJC]
3. (Paleon.) Like or pertaining to fossils; contained in
rocks, whether petrified or not; as, fossil plants,
shells.
{Fossil copal}, a resinous substance, first found in the blue
clay at Highgate, near London, and apparently a vegetable
resin, partly changed by remaining in the earth.
{Fossil cork}, {Fossil flax}, {Fossil paper}, or {Fossil
wood}, varieties of amianthus.
{Fossil farina}, a soft carbonate of lime.
{Fossil ore}, fossiliferous red hematite. --Raymond.
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
99 Moby Thesaurus words for "fossil":
Methuselah, afterglow, afterimage, ancient manuscript,
antediluvian, antique, antiquity, archaism, artifact, back number,
balance, butt, butt end, candle ends, cave painting, chaff,
conservative, dad, debris, detritus, dodo, elder, end, eolith,
fag end, filings, fogy, fud, fuddy-duddy, granny, has-been,
holdover, husks, leavings, leftovers, longhair, matriarch,
mezzolith, microlith, mid-Victorian, mossback, neolith,
odds and ends, offscourings, old believer, old crock, old dodo,
old fogy, old liner, old man, old poop, old woman, old-timer, orts,
paleolith, parings, patriarch, petrification, petrified forest,
petrified wood, petroglyph, plateaulith, pop, pops, rags,
reactionary, refuse, regular old fogy, relic, relics, reliquiae,
remainder, remains, remnant, residue, residuum, rest, roach,
rubbish, ruin, ruins, rump, sawdust, scourings, scraps, shadow,
shavings, square, starets, stick-in-the-mud, straw, stubble, stump,
survival, sweepings, trace, traditionalist, vestige, waste
From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:
fossil n.
1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only
in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to
break compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as default base for
string escapes in {C}, in spite of the better match of hexadecimal to
ASCII and modern byte-addressable architectures. See {dusty deck}. 2.
More restrictively, a feature with past but no present utility. Example:
the force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 and {BSD} Unix tty driver,
designed for use with monocase terminals. (In a perversion of the usual
backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually been
expanded and renamed in some later USG Unix releases as the IUCLC and
OLCUC bits.) 3. The FOSSIL (Fido/Opus/Seadog Standard Interface Level)
driver specification for serial-port access to replace the {brain-dead}
routines in the IBM PC ROMs. Fossils are used by most MS-DOS {BBS}
software in preference to the 'supported' ROM routines, which do not
support interrupt-driven operation or setting speeds above 9600; the use
of a semistandard FOSSIL library is preferable to the {bare metal}
serial port programming otherwise required. Since the FOSSIL
specification allows additional functionality to be hooked in, drivers
that use the {hook} but do not provide serial-port access themselves are
named with a modifier, as in 'video fossil'.
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
fossil
1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only
in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so
as not to break compatibility. Example: the retention of
{octal} as default base for string escapes in {C}, in spite of
the better match of {hexadecimal} to ASCII and modern
byte-addressable architectures. See {dusty deck}.
2. More restrictively, a feature with past but no present
utility. Example: the force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7
and {BSD} Unix tty driver, designed for use with monocase
terminals. (In a perversion of the usual
backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually
been expanded and renamed in some later {USG Unix} releases as
the IUCLC and OLCUC bits.)
3. The FOSSIL (Fido/Opus/Seadog Standard Interface Level)
driver specification for serial-port access to replace the
{brain-dead} routines in the IBM PC ROMs. Fossils are used by
most {MS-DOS} {BBS} software in preference to the "supported"
ROM routines, which do not support interrupt-driven operation
or setting speeds above 9600; the use of a semistandard FOSSIL
library is preferable to the {bare metal} serial port
programming otherwise required. Since the FOSSIL
specification allows additional functionality to be hooked in,
drivers that use the {hook} but do not provide serial-port
access themselves are named with a modifier, as in "video
fossil".
[{Jargon File}]
From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:
Fossil, OR (city, FIPS 26650)
Location: 44.99841 N, 120.21319 W
Population (1990): 399 (224 housing units)
Area: 2.0 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
From U.S. Gazetteer Places (2000) [gaz-place]:
Fossil, OR -- U.S. city in Oregon
Population (2000): 469
Housing Units (2000): 245
Land area (2000): 0.763277 sq. miles (1.976878 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 0.763277 sq. miles (1.976878 sq. km)
FIPS code: 26650
Located within: Oregon (OR), FIPS 41
Location: 44.999595 N, 120.214239 W
ZIP Codes (1990):
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Fossil, OR
Fossil
From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:
FOSSIL
Fido Opus Seadog Standard Interface Layer
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