Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Quaternary |
QuaternaryAdjective1. Consisting of or especially arranged in sets of four; "quaternate leaves"; "a quaternary compound". 2. Coming next after the third and just before the fifth in position or time or degree or magnitude; "the quaternary period of geologic time extends from the end of the tertiary period to the present". Noun1. Last 2 million years. 2. The cardinal number that is the sum of three and one. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "quaternary" was first used: sometime around 1450. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Geological | Period of geologic time from about 2 million years ago until the present. It contains the Pleistocene (2 million - 8,000) and Holocene (8,000 - present) epochs. (references) |
| The most recent Period of the Cenozoic Era. Encompasses the time interval of 1.6 million years ago through today. . (references) | |
| The geologic time period comprising about the last 1.65 million years. (references) | |
Health | 1. fourth in order. 2. containing four elements or groups. (references) |
Mining | The second period of the Cenozoic era, following the Tertiary; also, the corresponding system of rocks. It began 2 to 3 million years ago and extends to the present. It consists of two grossly unequal epochs; the Pleistocene, up to about 10,000 years ago, and the Holocene since that time. The Quaternary was originally designated an era rather than a period, with the epochs considered to be periods, and it is still sometimes used as such in the geologic literature. The Quaternary may also be incorporated into the Neogene, when the Neogene is designated as aperiod of the Tertiary era. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
This period is part of theCenozoic era. |
Tertiary |
Quaternary |
This article is about the geologic period. For base-4 in mathematics, see quaternary numeral system.
The Quaternary Period is the geologic time period from the end of the Pliocene Epoch roughly 1.8-1.6 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary includes 2 geologic subdivisions -- the Pleistocene and the Holocene Epochs.
The term Quaternary (fourth) was proposed by Jules Desnoyers in 1929 to address sediments of France's Seine Basin that seemed clearly to be younger than Tertiary Period rocks. The Quaternary Period follows the Tertiary Period and extends to the present. The Quaternary roughly covers the time span of recent glaciations including the last glacial retreat. An occasional alternative usage places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of North Pole glaciation approximately 3 million years ago and includes portions of the upper Pliocene.
The 1.8-1.6 million years of the Quaternary represents the time during which recognizable humans existed. Continental drift of less than 100km is largely irrelevant to a period so short. The climate was one of periodic glaciations with continental glaciers moving as far from the poles as 40 degrees latitude. Few major new animals evolved, again presumably because of the short -- in geologic terms -- duration of the period. There was a major extinction of large mammals in Northern areas at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. Many forms such as the saber tooth cat, mammoths, mastodons, glyptodonts, etc., became extinct worldwide. Others including horses, camels and cheetahs became extinct in North America.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Quaternary."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| QUEEN | English | Quaternary Environment of the Eurasia North | Geography |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: QuaternarySynonyms: fourth (adj), quaternate (adj), four (n), foursome (n), quadruplet (n), quartet (n), quatern (n), quaternion (n), quaternity (n), tetrad (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Four | Adjective: four; quaternary, quaternal; quadratic; quartile; tetract, tetractic, tetractinal; tetrad, tetragonal; square, quadrate. |
Oldness | Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous; Tertiary, Paleogene, Neocene; Quaternary. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Quaternary |
| English words defined with "quaternary": 4th ♦ Champlain period ♦ Diprotodon ♦ fourth ♦ Glyptodon ♦ Megalonyx ♦ Postpliocene, Posttertiary, Primary rocks ♦ Quantic, quaternate ♦ Thinolite. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "quaternary": Benzalkonium Compounds, Benzethonium, Butylscopolammonium Bromide ♦ cotectic surface ♦ filtered QPSK ♦ light chain ♦ Oxyphenonium ♦ Pralidoxime Compounds, Protein Conformation. (references) |
| Domain | Title | ||
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Periodicals |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Senegal | The government's 2001 budget priorities will focus on public service infrastructure (the quaternary or fourth sector which includes health, water, roads), on agriculture, and on the service sector. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Quaternary" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 81.58% of the time. "Quaternary" is used about 76 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 81.58% | 62 | 42,755 |
| Noun (proper) | 10.53% | 8 | 124,375 |
| Noun (singular) | 7.89% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Total | 100.00% | 76 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "quaternary": quaternary ammonium compound ♦ quaternary period. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "quaternary": mid-quaternary. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "quaternary"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | katërsor. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | رباعي (fourfold, quadrilateral, quadruple), رباع الرباع. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | четворка (four, quadruplet, quaternion, tetrad), четворен (fourfold, quadruple), квартернер, квартерн, кватернерен. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 四个一组. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | kvartérní. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | kvartær. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | quaternair. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | kvaternaarinen ammoniumyhdiste (quaternary ammonium compound), differentiaalisesti koodattu kvaternaarinen vaihesiirtoavainnus (differentially encoded quaternary PSK system). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | quaternaire. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | quartär, aus vier bestehend. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | τετραδικόσ, τεταρτοταγής. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | négytagú. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | quaternario (post-tertiary, recent). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 4 개 한조가 되". (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | kiaroil. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | aternaryquay quaternário (post-tertiary, present system, recent), quaternário, série de quatro coisas, o número quatro. (various references) четвертичный. (various references) kvartarni period, kvartarni. (various references) cuaternario (post-tertiary, recent). (various references) kvartär-. (various references) son jeolojik zaman, dörtlü bileşik, dörtlü (four, foursome, quad, quadr-, quadraphonic, quadripartite, quadro-, quadrophonic, quadruple, quadruplet, quart, quartet, quartette, quater-, Square, tetra-, tetrad), dört (four, quadr-, quadro-, quadruple, quater-, tetra-, tetrad), dördüncü çağ. (various references) четвірка (cater, quaternion), четвертинний період, четвертинний, четверний. (various references) nhóm bốn, hệ thứ tư. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | quaternarius. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Quaternary" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: quartenary, quarternary, quatenary. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "quaternary" (pronounced kwÄ"terne'rē) |
| 4 | -n e' r ē | bicentenary, cardiopulmonary, cautionary, centenary, concessionary, confectionary, confectionery, coronary, counterrevolutionary, culinary, deflationary, dictionary, disciplinary, discretionary, disinflationary, diversionary, evolutionary, exclusionary, expansionary, expeditionary, extraordinary, functionary, illusionary, imaginary, inflationary, interdisciplinary, luminary, mercenary, missionary, noninflationary, ordinary, preliminary, probationary, pulmonary, reactionary, recessionary, revolutionary, seminary, stationary, stationery, urinary, veterinary, visionary. |
| 3 | -e' r ē | actuary, adversary, ancillary, apothecary, arbitrary, aviary, beneficiary, Blackberry, blueberry, budgetary, capillary, Cassowary, cemetery, cometary, commentary, commissary, Constabulary, contemporary, corollary, cranberry, customary, depositary, Dewberry, dietary, dignitary, Dogberry, dromedary, dysentery, emissary, epistolary, estuary, fiduciary, formulary, fragmentary, funerary, gooseberry, hackberry, hereditary, honorary, Huckleberry, interplanetary, involuntary, itinerary, judiciary, lapidary, legendary, library, literary, military, momentary, monastery, monetary, mortuary, mulberry, necessary, nonmilitary, obituary, paramilitary, pecuniary, pituitary, planetary, primary, proprietary, raspberry, Rosemary, salutary, sanctuary, sanitary, savagery, secondary, secretary, sedentary, semilegendary, solitary, statuary, strawberry, subsidiary, temporary, Tilbury, topiary, tributary, undersecretary, unitary, unnecessary, unsanitary, vocabulary. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-e-n-q-r-r-t-u-y" | |
-2 letters: quartern. | |
-3 letters: narrate, quartan, quarter, ternary, turnery. | |
-4 letters: arrant, artery, aurate, errant, errata, nature, quanta, quarry, quarte, quatre, ranter, ratany, return, turner, yantra, yarner. | |
-5 letters: anear, antae, antra, antre, aquae, arena, array, aunty, aurae, aurar, entry, qanat, quant, quare, quart, quate, quean, quern, query, ratan, rater, reata, reran, rerun, retry, ruana, runty, tarre, tarry. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-e-n-q-r-r-t-u-y" | |
+5 letters: quatercentenary. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Translations: Ancient 11. Abbreviations 12. Acronyms | 13. Derivations 14. Rhymes 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
