cuneiform

• cuniform

From French cunéiforme or New Latin cuneifōrmis, from Classical Latin cuneus (“wedge”) + fōrma.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkjuː.nɪ.fɔːm/, /ˈkjuː.ni.ɪ.fɔːm/, /kjʊˈneɪ.ɪ.fɔːm/

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /kjuˈni.ə.fɔɹm/, /ˈkju.nɪ.fɔɹm/, /kjuˈneɪ.ɪ.fɔɹm/

cuneiform (not comparable)

1. Having the form of a wedge; wedge-shaped, especially with a tapered end.
   • 1889, John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt, “New Fire Among the Iroquois”, in American Anthropologist, volume 2, page 319:

     About midway across the larger log a cuneiform notch or cut about six inches deep was made.

   • 1936, W. Frank Calderon, Animal Painting and Anatomy, page 297:

     The cuneiform tendon is always sharply defined when the hock is flexed by the action of the muscle.

   • 1952, Aileen Fox, Roman Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum): Excavations in the War-damaged Areas, 1945-1947, page 69:

     The cuneiform leaf is not the characteristic heart-shaped early form (O. and P., p. 241).

2. Written in the cuneiform writing system.
   • 1911, Alvin Sylvester Zerbe, The Antiquity of Hebrew Writing and Literature, page 182:

     There, too, it was originally the vulgar script in contrast with the official cuneiform script employed for all official documents, compacts, etc.

   • 2000, Jöran Friberg, A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian Mathematical Texts, page ix:

     The text is inscribed on a clay tablet of a very unusual format. The only other known mathematical cuneiform text on a clay tablet of a similar format is also the only previously known Kassite (and therefore post-Old-Babylonian) mathematical cuneiform text.

cuneiform (plural cuneiforms)

2. An ancient Mesopotamian writing system, adapted within several language families, originating as pictograms in Sumer around the 30th century BC, evolving into more abstract and characteristic wedge shapes formed by a blunt reed stylus on clayen tablets.
3. (anatomy) A wedge-shaped bone, especially a cuneiform bone.

• Akkadian, Accadian
• Old Persian
• Ugaritic

Borrowed from French cunéiforme.

• IPA^(key): /ku.nei̯ˈform/

cuneiform m or n (feminine singular cuneiformă, masculine plural cuneiformi, feminine/neuter plural cuneiforme)

1. cuneiform

• “cuneiform”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2026