: any of a subclass (Ammonoidea) of extinct cephalopods especially abundant in the Mesozoic age that had flat spiral shells with the interior divided by septa into chambers
: a member of a Semitic people who in Old Testament times lived east of the Jordan between the Jabbok and the Arnon
Ammoniteadjective
Examples of ammonite in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Other mosasaur species preferred to dine on ammonites.—Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 May 2024 One hundred and thirty million years ago, countless ammonites of all shapes and sizes swam in the proto-Caribbean Sea alongside fishes and enormous marine predators.—Santiago Flórez, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Feb. 2024 The fish in question, with the ammonite located just below its spine.—Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 20 Sep. 2023 And her interest in fossils is linked from the start to her passionate attachment to another girl her own age who identifies an ammonite that the narrator finds on the beach.—Ruth Franklin, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023 For more than 2,000 years, Hinduism, Buddhism and the shamanic Himalayan religion of Bon have venerated Shaligrams – ancient fossils of ammonites, a class of extinct sea creatures related to modern squids.—Holly Walters, The Conversation, 4 Aug. 2023 These included ichthyosaurs—dolphin-like reptiles—as well as turtles, fish, ammonites, crabs, mollusks, sharks, and at least one species of crocodyliform.—Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 23 Mar. 2023 Even the inexperienced are likely to find the 200-million-year-old shells of ammonites (extinct ancestors of mollusks) embedded in the rocks along the shore.—Travel + Leisure Editors, Travel + Leisure, 10 Mar. 2023 Mary is tough and closed off, for example, like a shelled ammonite made hard as rock by external pressure.—Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 27 Jan. 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ammonite.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
New Latin ammonites, from Latin cornu Ammonis, literally, horn of Ammon
Noun (2)
Late Latin Ammonites, from Hebrew ʽAmmōn Ammon (son of Lot), descendant of Ammon
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