a. and sb. [f. WEALD + -EN4.
The suffix is here employed arbitrarily in a sense remote from its ordinary use. As the formation of the word was app. suggested by the adjs. in -en, it may be presumed that the inventor regarded the adjectival use as primary, and the substantival use as elliptical for ‘wealden formation’; but Martin’s own use of the term affords no evidence of this.]
A. adj.
1. Of or pertaining to the geological formation known as the Wealden (see B). Wealden lizard = HYLÆOSAURUS.
1828. P. I. Martin, Geol. Mem. W. Sussex, 42. This bed of wealden sand.
1829. W. Buckland, in Trans. Geol. Soc. (1835), Ser. II. III. 425. On the discovery of Fossil Bones of the Iguanodon, in the Iron Sand of the Wealden Formation in the Isle of Wight.
1833. Mantell, Geol. S. E. Eng., 181. The Wealden strata may be separated into three principal divisions; namely, the Weald clay; the Hastings beds, including the strata of Tilgate Forest; and the Ashburnham or inferior limestones and shales. Ibid., 328, note. The Wealden Lizard, or Fossil Lizard of Tilgate Forest.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 65. Wealden series, a name given to a series of clays, sands, and limestones, from being well developed in the weald of Sussex, and which is remarkable for containing the remains of terrestrial, freshwater, and æstuary animals.
1863. A. C. Ramsay, Phys. Geog., 125. It [Weald Clay] was left in its native state, and formed those broad forests which once covered the Wealden area.
2. Of or pertaining to the Weald.
1870. M. A. Lower, Hist. Sussex, I. 137. This ancient Wealden parish is about five miles in length, [etc.].
1896. A. Austin, England’s Darling, IV. ii. And wealden wolves will batten on the rest.
1907. Sat. Rev., 14 Sept., 327/1. Soon the dryer will cease from the land, and lie, as an epitaph in a wealden churchyard abbreviates it, ‘Buried in Hop’s.’
B. sb. Geol. The name of a formation or series of estuarine and freshwater deposits of Lower Cretaceous age, extensively developed in the Weald.
1828. P. I. Martin, Geol. Mem. W. Sussex, 9. To avoid the inconvenience of the periphrasis of weald sands and clays, it is proposed, as any compound from weald must have a Saxon termination, to call the whole formation the Wealden. Ibid., 48. Fossils of the Wealden. The fossil shells most frequent in this district of the weald, (and they are common to the whole Wealden,) are of the genera Vivipara, [etc.].
1842. H. Miller, O. R. Sandst., i. (ed. 2), 39. From the Grauwacke of the Lammermuirs, to the Wealden of Moray.
1876. D. Page, Adv. Text-bk. Geol., xvii. 308. Regarding the Lias, Oolite and Wealden as portions of one great system.
