【明報專訊】A fossil is ''a remnant, impression, or trace of an organism of past geologic ages that has been preserved in the earth's crust''. Most fossils are of plants and animals, however the English language has fossils too. Fossil words are traces of older English buried in set phrases that have survived into the modern age. These fossil words are used, but are very difficult or impossible to find in most regular dictionaries. They're used in idioms, but rarely on their own.
