cuneiform
American Heritage Dictionary:
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cu·ne·i·form
(kyū'nē-ə-fôrm', kyū-nē'-) 
adj.
adj.
- Wedge-shaped.
- Being a character or characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements and used in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian writing.
- Relating to, composed in, or using such characters.
- Anatomy. Of, relating to, or being a wedge-shaped bone or cartilage.
- Writing typified by the use of characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements.
- Anatomy. A wedge-shaped bone, especially one of three such bones in the tarsus of the foot.
[Latin cuneus, wedge + -FORM.]
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cuneiform
Fowler's Modern English Usage:
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cuneiform
meaning 'ancient wedge-shaped writing', is now normally pronounced as three syllables in British English, i.e. kyoo-ni-fawm, and as four in American English, i.e. kyoo-nay-i-fawm.
| cumulative, accumulative, cum, culture | |
| cupful, cupola, curb, kerb |
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Having a wedge-shaped form; esp. applied to characters, or to the inscriptions in such characters, of the ancient Mesopotamians and Persians.
Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology:
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cuneiform
[De]
The term used to describe early writing in the Middle East (Sumerian, Akkadian and related languages) in which wedge-shaped impressions are left on a clay tablet. It was used from the 3rd through to the 1st millennia bc and is thought to have derived from older Sumerian pictographic script.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
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cuneiform
cuneiform (kyūnē'ĭfôrm) [Lat.,=wedge-shaped], system of writing developed before the last centuries of the 4th millennium B.C. in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley, probably by the Sumerians (see Sumer). The characters consist of arrangements of wedgelike strokes generally impressed with a stylus on wet clay tablets, which were then dried or baked. The history of the script is strikingly parallel to that of the Egyptian hieroglyphic (see also alphabet and inscription). The normal Babylonian and Assyrian writing used a large number (300-600) of arbitrary cuneiform symbols for words and syllables; some had been originally pictographic. There was an alphabetic system, too, making it possible to spell a word out, but because of the adaptation from Sumerian, a different language, there were many ambiguities. A single symbol could be used to represent a concept, an object, a simple sound or syllable, or to indicate the category of words requiring additional definition. Cuneiform writing was used outside Mesopotamia also, notably in Elam and by the Hittites (see Anatolian languages). There are many undeciphered cuneiform inscriptions, apparently representing several different languages. Cuneiform writing declined in use after the Persian conquest of Babylonia (539 B.C.), and after a brief renaissance (3d-1st cent. B.C.) ceased to be used in Mesopotamia. A very late use of cuneiform writing was that of the Persians, who established a syllabary for Old Persian. This is the writing of the Achaemenids (mid-6th cent. B.C.-4th cent. B.C.), whose greatest monument is that of Darius I at Behistun. Key discoveries of cuneiform inscriptions have been made at Nineveh, Lagash, Uruk, Tell el Amarna, Susa, and Boğazköy. Two great names in the interpretation of cuneiforms are those of Sir Henry C. Rawlinson and G. F. Grotefend.
Bibliography
See E. Chiera, They Wrote on Clay (1956); J. D. Prince, Assyrian Primer (1909, repr. 1966); A. Gaur, A History of Writing (1984).
Saunders Veterinary Dictionary:
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cuneiform
1. wedge-shaped.
2. the first, second and third tarsal bones.
- c. process — processes of the arytenoid cartilage in dogs, or the epiglottic cartilages of horses.
Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'cuneiform'
- Practice, Techniques, Artifacts, and Tools - cuneiform: triangular or wedge-shaped pictographic writing system characteristic of cultures of ancient Near East from around 3500 B.C.
- Linguistics and Writing Systems - cuneiform: system of writing using wedge-shaped characters, used by the ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, and others
See crossword solutions for the clue Translations:
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Cuneiform
Dansk (Danish)
adj. - kileformet, kileskrifts-
n. - kileskrift
idioms:
- cuneiform script kileskriftsystem
Français (French)
adj. - cunéiforme
n. - écriture cunéiforme
idioms:
- cuneiform script écriture cunéiforme
Deutsch (German)
n. - Keilschrift
adj. - keilförmig
idioms:
- cuneiform script Keilschrift
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - σφηνοειδής γραφή
adj. - σφηνοειδής
idioms:
- cuneiform script σφηνοειδής γραφή
idioms:
- cuneiform script scrittura cuneiforme
Português (Portuguese)
n. - caracteres (m pl) cuneiformes
adj. - cuneiforme
idioms:
- cuneiform script escrita (f) cuneiforme
idioms:
- cuneiform script клинопись
Español (Spanish)
adj. - cuneiforme
n. - hueso cuneiforme
idioms:
- cuneiform script escritura cuneiforme
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kilskrift
adj. - kilformig, kilskrift-
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
楔形的, 楔状骨的, 楔形文字的, 楔形文字, 楔状骨
idioms:
- cuneiform script 楔形铭文
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 楔形的, 楔狀骨的, 楔形文字的
n. - 楔形文字, 楔狀骨
idioms:
- cuneiform script 楔形銘文
한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 쐐기 모양의, 설형문자의
n. - 설형 문자
日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - くさび形の, くさび形文字の
n. - くさび形文字
idioms:
- cuneiform script 楔型文字
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) الخط المسماري (صفه) مسماري
עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - בצורת יתד, כותב בכתב-היתדות, קשור לכתב היתדות
n. - כתב-היתדות
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Copyrights:
American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture & Construction
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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Columbia Encyclopedia
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.
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Saunders Veterinary Dictionary
Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved.
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Random House Word Menu
© 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier.
Write Brothers Inc.
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Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary
Collins Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary © Anne Bradford, 1986, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008
HarperCollins Publishers
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