fos·sil
 fossil
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- pronunciation:
- fa
s
l
- features:
- Word History, Word Explorer
| part of speech: |
noun |
| definition: |
A fossil is something left behind by a living thing that lived on the earth a very long time ago. Sometimes a fossil is a part of an animal's body, like a bone from a dinosaur or a backbone of a fish. Sometimes it is a pattern formed by things like shells or leaves or animal tracks that you can see in the surface of a rock. It is the rock itself that has preserved these things so that we can see them now, even after such a long time.
Liz loved looking at the fossils at the earth science museum. Her favorite was a skeleton of a huge fish.
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| derivation: |
fossillike (adj.) |
Fossil is from a Latin word that means "dug up."