a. Geol. [f. Gr. ἠώ-ς dawn (see EO-) + καινός new, recent.]
1. The epithet applied to the lowest division of the Tertiary strata, and to the geological period which they represent.
1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 55. The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene.
1851. Richardson, Geol., vii. 174. The eocene group is characterised by a total absence of cycadeæ.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 214. The Eocene rocks … once spread over the whole surface of this chalk.
fig. 1856. Darwin, Lett., 17 June (1887), II. 73. His Geology also is rather eocene, as I told him.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 99–100. These eocene periods of the day are not fitted for sustaining the human forms of life.
1870. Daily Tel., 22 Sept., 4/5. Its deep roots shot back into the eocene strata of civilisation.
2. quasi-sb.
1851. Richardson, Geol., xi. 370. 1. Upper Eocene…. 2. Middle Eocene…. 3. Lower Eocene.
fig. 1877. Blackmore, Erema, II. xxxvi. 221. The calm deep eocene of British rural mind.
