slight antedatings: "rupestrian"/ "rupestral"

[Jonathan Lighter]

In the nuance of "painted or inscribed on rocks or cave walls."  Customary
usage had applied only to growing things.

OED's 1896 ex. appears earlier in _Science_, Feb. 9, 1894, p. 81.  The same
journal a year earlier (Feb. 24, 1893), p. 104, has "The rupestrian writing
is of much more uncertain age."

"Rupestral" :

1888 Sir Robert Lambert Playfair _A Bibliography of Algeria_ (London: J.
Murray) 212: He...discovered several rupestral inscriptions.

JL
_
--
"There You Go Again...Using Reason on the Planet of the Duck-Billed
Platypus"

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org