Lyell

American  

[lahy-uhl] / ˈlaɪ əl /

noun

1. Sir Charles, 1797–1875, English geologist.

2. Mount, a mountain in E central California, in Yosemite National Park, in the Sierra Nevada. 13,114 feet (3,997 meters).

3. Also Lyall. a mountain on the border of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, in the Rocky Mountains. 11,520 feet (3,511 meters).

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Lyell British  

/ ˈlaɪəl /

noun

1. Sir Charles. 1797–1875, Scottish geologist. In Principles of Geology (1830–33) he advanced the theory of uniformitarianism, refuting the doctrine of catastrophism

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Lyell Scientific  

/ lī′əl /

1. Scottish geologist who is considered one of the founders of modern geology. He is most famous for his principle of uniformitarianism, as first set forth in his three-volume Principles of Geology (1830–1833).

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Lyell

Welty and Lyell were about the same age.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025

The jacket photo of “To Absent Friends,” which features Welty and Lyell in a theatrical pose, as if they were matinee idols, hints at the kind of personal theater in which they indulged as 20-somethings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025

The East Lyell glacier, which backpackers see while traveling along the John Muir Trail, has lost an estimated 95% of its volume since the late 1800s, the researchers said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2025

Lyell shrew, a mouse-like mammal that lives in the central Sierra Nevada, has never been photographed in the 100 years since it was discovered.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2025

Rather than a colossal biblical Flood, Lyell argued, there had been millions of floods; God had shaped the earth not through singular cataclysms but through a million paper cuts.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee