Fos″sil, n. 1. A substance dug from the earth.
☞ Formerly all minerals were called fossils, but the word is now restricted to express the remains of animals and plants found buried in the earth. Ure.
2. (Paleon.) The remains of an animal or plant found in stratified rocks. Most fossils belong to extinct species, but many of the later ones belong to species still living.
3. A person whose views and opinions are extremely antiquated; one whose sympathies are with a former time rather than with the present.