Meaning

2 senses
  1. An ancient Mesopotamian writing system, adapted within several language families, originating as pictograms in Sumer around the 30th century BCE, evolving into more abstract and characteristic wedge shapes formed by a blunt reed stylus on clayen tablets.

    Keilschrift

    кли́нописьklínopisʹ

    кли́нописklýnopys

  2. A wedge-shaped bone, especially a cuneiform bone.

    клинови́дная костьklinovídnaja kostʹ

    an ancient wedge-shaped script used in Mesopotamia and Persia

Examples

3 sentences
  1. The cuneiform script was used for more than 22 centuries.

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  2. The cuneiform alphabet invented by the Sumerians was used by many languages in the ancient Near East.

    ruКлинопись, изобретённая шумерами, в древности использовалась во многих языках на Ближнем Востоке.

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  3. It is in the cuneiform records of Babylonia that we catch the first glimpse of the early history of Canaan.

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Translations

8 languages
Українська
By meaning 1
ancient writing system:
Русский
By meaning 2
ancient writing system:
wedge-shaped bone:
Deutsch
By meaning 1
ancient writing system:

Origin

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

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

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: cuneiforms

Synonyms

1 synonyms

Word family

1 related words

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
cuneiform — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto