- quaternary
- c.1430, "consisting of four parts," from L. quaternarius "of four each," from quaterni "four each," from quater "four times," related to quattuor "four" (see four). In geological sense, attested from 1843, proposed 1829 by Fr. geologist Jules Pierre François Stanislas Desnoyers (1800-1887) as name for "the fourth great epoch of geological time," but since it only comprises the age of man, and the other epochs are many hundred times longer, not all accepted it.