dolmen









dolmen


noun Archaeology.

  1. a structure usually regarded as a tomb, consisting of two or more large, upright stones set with a space between and capped by a horizontal stone.

noun

  1. (in British archaeology) a Neolithic stone formation, consisting of a horizontal stone supported by several vertical stones, and thought to be a tomb
  2. (in French archaeology) any megalithic tomb
n.

1859, from French dolmin applied 1796 by French general and antiquarian Théophile Malo Corret de La Tour d’Auvergne (1743-1800), perhaps from Cornish tolmen “enormous stone slab set up on supporting points,” such that a man may walk under it, literally “hole of stone,” from Celtic men “stone.”

Some suggest the first element may be Breton taol “table,” a loan-word from Latin tabula “board, plank,” but the Breton form of this compound would be taolvean. “There is reason to think that this [tolmen] is the word inexactly reproduced by Latour d’Auvergne as dolmin, and misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to the cromlech” [OED]. See cromlech, which is properly an upright flat stone, often arranged as one of a circle.

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