Word.ws English Dictionary

Messinian

Messinian proper noun: the final subdivision of the Miocene epoch. Also the alternative form of Messenian.

Proper noun

Messinian

  1. The final subdivision of the Miocene epoch.

Also used as

Messinian is also the alternative form of Messenian.

Forms of Messinian

pluralMessinians

Origin of Messinian

From Messina (“Sicilian city near to where evaporite rocks of this period outcrop”) + -ian; coined by Swiss stratigrapher Karl Mayer-Eymar in 1867.

Words formed from Messinian

Questions about Messinian

What does Messinian mean?
Messinian means the final subdivision of the Miocene epoch.
What part of speech is Messinian?
Messinian is a proper noun.

Words near Messinian in the dictionary

  1. Messing-cum-Inworth
  2. Messinger
  3. Messingers
  4. Messingham
  5. Messinia
  6. Messinian
  7. Messinian event
  8. Messinian salinity crisis
  9. Messinians
  10. messins
  11. Messis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Messinian (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Messinian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/messinian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.