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Glite Dictionary
Piltdown hoax

Piltdown hoax

9.6
A famous case where fake human fossils tricked scientists for years
  • noun
  • /ˈpɪltdaʊn hoʊks/
translation icon : farsa de Piltdown
  • The Piltdown hoax involved fossil remains that were later shown to be a clever fabrication, not a genuine discovery.

Examples

  • The Piltdown hoax was uncovered as a significant scientific fraud that misled researchers for decades.

  • Many scientists were fooled by the Piltdown hoax, which claimed to reveal the missing link in human evolution.

  • The people who created the Piltdown hoax believed in their own version of evolution.

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Synonyms

Piltdown
vsPiltdown hoax
1 9.9

A false scientific discovery made to trick people

refers to that specific famous fabricated fossil case rather than the general label

Surface Forms

Piltdown hoax singular
Piltdown hoaxes plural

Morphology

Piltdown + hoax

The phrase is a proper-name + noun combination where 'Piltdown' refers to a specific (fabricated) discovery and 'hoax' means a deliberate deception. A learner who knows both constituents can infer this refers to a particular scientific fraud, so the overall meaning is directly derivable from the parts.

Etymology

Piltdown hoax comes from a famous fake fossil found in Piltdown, England: a modern human skull joined to an ape jaw, filed and stained to look old. The trick misled scientists for many years, so the phrase now refers to a famous 'fraud' or big 'fake' in science.