cuneiform
part of speech
noun (cuneiform, uncountable); adjective (cuneiform)
meaning for a pupil
1) Cuneiform is one of the oldest kinds of writing in the world, made of small wedge-shaped marks pressed into wet clay with a reed, first used in ancient Mesopotamia (now Iraq) over 5,000 years ago. tree →
2) (adjective) Cuneiform describes something shaped like a wedge, or written in this script. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons it comes with the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians and the first cities. It tells the reader about how writing began: for counting grain, animals and taxes, then for laws, letters and stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh. Clay tablets with cuneiform are kept in museums such as the British Museum.
examples
- The Sumerians wrote in cuneiform on clay tablets. tree →
- Cuneiform marks look like tiny triangles and lines. tree →
- Scribes pressed a reed into wet clay to write cuneiform. tree →
- Some cuneiform tablets are lists of sheep and barley. tree →
- We tried writing our names in cuneiform with lollipop sticks and clay. tree →
- The British Museum has thousands of cuneiform tablets. tree →
- Experts can now read cuneiform. tree →
note
Uncountable: «written in cuneiform». Pronounced «KYOO-nee-i-form» (UK also «kyoo-NAY-i-form»). From Latin «cuneus», a wedge. It is a writing system, not a language: it was used for several languages, such as Sumerian and Akkadian. Not to be confused with Egyptian hieroglyphs, which are pictures.
In the corpora
- Scribes pressed a cut reed into wet clay, making wedge-shaped marks called cuneiform.
- Scribes pressed a cut reed into wet clay, making wedge-shaped marks; the word cuneiform means wedge-shaped.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «cuneiform» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.