Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A proposed species of extinct humans described from a skull uncovered in a gravel bed in England in 1912 but determined in 1953 to be a fake constructed from a human cranium and the jawbone of an orangutan.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a supposedly primitive man later proven to be a hoax

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Piltdown, Common in southeast England.]

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