fossil word
description: word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom
3 results
The Ministry for the Future: A Novel
by Kim Stanley Robinson · 5 Oct 2020 · 583pp · 182,990 words
-existing power resist revolutionary changes? Of course, but they fail! Because who holds power? No one knows anymore. Political power is itself one of those fossil words, behind which lies an unknown. I would have thought oligarchies were pretty known. Oligarchic power is the usual answer given, but if it exists at
Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies
by Jared M. Diamond · 15 Jul 2005
stem from a population expansion out of Taiwan. WE CAN NOW turn to archaeological evidence. While the debris of ancient village sites does not include fossilized words along with bones and pottery, it does reveal movements of people and cultural artifacts that could be associated with languages. Like the rest of the
Red Mars
by Kim Stanley Robinson · 23 Oct 1992 · 660pp · 213,945 words
tongue— Nirgal, Mangala, Auqakuh, Harmakhis— they sound as if they were even older than the ancient languages we find them in, as if they were fossil words from the Ice Age or before. Yes, for thousands of years Mars was a sacred power in human affairs; and its color made it a