dentalium
Americannoun
-
dentaliums,
plural
-
dentalia
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dentalium
1860–65; < New Latin < Medieval Latin dentāl ( is ) dental + -ium -ium
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
At the unveiling, Shaginoff wore a fire bag she’d made and decorated with dentalium shells.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 12, 2021
The dentalium; the shell money or wampum of the Pacific coast.
From Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon by George Gibbs
Long earrings, each made from about 120 dentalium shells.
From American Antiquities Auction Catalogue, January 8, 1898 by Wm. B. Norman
They were not tattooed, but ears and noses were encumbered with pendants of dentalium and a small red glass bead.
The natives of the coast are fond of it as ornament, and among them strings of dentalium shells serve for money just as wampum did in the east.
From American Indians by Frederick Starr
Marine animals are arranged in the subterraneous beds with admirable order, in distinct groups, oysters here, dentalia or corals there, &c., as now, according to Marsilli,77 on the shores of the Adriatic.
From Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell
By his side we placed his fire sticks, ten pieces of dentalia or Indian money, a small bag of acorn meal, a bit of dried venison, some tobacco, and his bow and arrows.
From Hunting with the Bow and Arrow by Saxton Pope
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
