lingula

[ ling-gyuh-luh ]

noun

, plural lin·gu·lae [ling, -gy, uh, -lee].

1. a tongue-shaped organ, process, or tissue.

Other Words From

• lingu·lar adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of lingula¹

1655–65; < New Latin, Latin lingula, diminutive of lingua tongue; ligula

Example Sentences

They form two orders; Lyopoma, in which the shell is thin, and without a distinct hinge, as in Lingula; and Arthropoma, in which the firm calcareous shell has a regular hinge, as in Rhynchonella.

From Project Gutenberg

This is notably the case in the Dolgelly district, where considerable gold occurs, both in alluvial gravels and in well-formed quartz veins traversing the Lower Silurian Lingula beds and the intruded diabasic rocks called 'greenstone' in the Geological Survey.

From Project Gutenberg

Extinction sometimes evolution,221; over-specialization as a cause for extinction,222; extinction sometimes unaccountable, 223; man's capability for harm small in the past,224; old theories of great convulsions,226; changes in nature slow, 227; the case of Lingula,228; local extermination,229; the Moas and the Great Auk,232; the case of large animals, 233; inter-dependence of living beings,234; coyotes and fruit,236; Shaler on the Miocene flora of Europe,236; man's desire for knowledge,238.

From Project Gutenberg

Says Professor Brooks, speaking of Lingula: "The everlasting hills are the type of venerable antiquity; but Lingula has seen the continents grow up, and has maintained its integrity unmoved by the convulsions which have given the crust of the earth its present form."

From Project Gutenberg

The genus Lingula, a small shell, traces its ancestry back nearly to the base of the Ordovician system of rocks, an almost inconceivable lapse of time, while one species of brachiopod shell endures unchanged from the Trenton Limestone to the Lower Carboniferous.

From Project Gutenberg