a. and sb. [f. L. tellūrem the earth + -IAN.] A. adj. Of or pertaining to the earth; earthly, terrestrial.
1846. De Quincey, Syst. Heavens, Wks. 1854, III. 172. They absolutely hear the tellurian lungs wheezing, panting, crying.
1862. Parthenon, 26 July, 405. The stratified cemetery of the ‘tellurian’ crust.
1887. A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, & Relig., II. 120. There were … solar, lunar … [and] tellurian … methods of accounting for a myth.
B. sb. An inhabitant of the earth.
1847. De Quincey, Joan of Arc, Wks. 1854, III. 237. If any distant worlds … are so far ahead of us Tellurians in optical resources. Ibid. (c. 1851), Ess. Finlay’s Greece, Posth. Wks. 1893, II. 75. Our own case, the case of poor mediocre Tellurians.
