Eocene

//ˈiːəsiːn// adj, name

adj, name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of a geologic epoch within the Paleogene period from about 56 to 34 million years ago. not-comparable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The Eocene epoch.

Synonyms

All synonyms
eocene epochperiodtime

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἠώς (ēṓs, “dawn”) + καινός (kainós, “new”) and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. Coined by English polymath William Whewell in 1831 for Charles Lyell, who introduced it in 1833 in his book Principles of Geology. By surface analysis, eo- + -cene.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.