a. and sb. Also 7–9 cuneo-, 7 cuneform, 9 cuniform. [f. L. cune-us wedge + -FORM; cf. mod.L. cuneiform-is, F. cunéiforme (in Anatomy, 16th c. Paré).] A. adj.
1. Having the form of a wedge, wedge-shaped.
Cuneiform bone (in Anat.): (a) one of the bones of the carpus; (b) each of three bones of the second row of the tarsus, called internal, middle and external; (c) a name for the sphenoid bone of the skull. Cuneiform cartilages or tubercles: the cartilages of Wrisberg.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 268. The stones are all cuneoform.
1681. trans. Willis’ Rem. Med. Wks., Vocab., Cuneform, Wedg-like or in form of a Wedg: a bone so shap’d.
1741. Monro, Anat. Bones (ed. 3), 101. The external Surface is mostly convex, except at the cuneiform Apophyse.
1797. Bewick, Brit. Birds (1847), I. 138. The tail is cuniform and rather long.
1840. G. Ellis, Anat., 28. The cuneiform process of the sphenoid bone.
1850. Leitch, Müller’s Anc. Art, § 168. The art of arching by means of cuneiform stones.
2. spec. Applied to the characters of the ancient inscriptions of Persia, Assyria, etc., composed of wedge-shaped or arrow-headed elements; and hence to the inscriptions or records themselves.
1818. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., LXXXV. 486. The cuneiform character is so simple in its component parts, that it … consists only of two elements, the wedge and the rectangle.
1829. J. Kenrick, in Philos. Mag., May, 327. Beyond the limits of Persia more than one monument has been found with cuneiform inscriptions.
1869. F. W. Newman, Misc., 56. A cuneoform text from Assyria.
1876. Birch, Monum. Hist. Egypt, 39. The recently discovered Assyrian annals in the cuneiform character.
b. transf. Relating to, or conversant with, the cuneiform writing and inscriptions.
1862. Rawlinson, Anc. Mon., I. v. 330. Cuneiform scholars.
1874. Deutsch, Rem., 309. The vast importance of cuneiform studies.
B. sb. 1. Anat. = Cuneiform bone in A. 1.
1854. R. Owen, in Circ. Sc. (c. 1865), II. 78/2. The external cuneiform is the largest of the second series of tarsals.
2. The cuneiform character, cuneiform writing.
1862. Sat. Rev., Feb., 162. He [Sir G. C. Lewis] doubts the whole Egyptian chronology,… thinks the Babylonian annals an imposition, and does not even condescend to mention cuneiform and its decipherers.
1874. Deutsch, Rem., 309. There are three principal kinds of cuneiform.
Hence Cuneiformist, a student of cuneiform writing.
1884. W. M. Ramsay, in Athenæum, 27 Dec., 865/2. As to the Hittites in Northern Syria, of course we … must accept the verdict of cuneiformists and Egyptologists.
