[1785–95; carbon + -aceous]This word is first recorded in the period 1785–95. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: dualism, fossilize, logrolling, plateau, terrorist-aceous is a suffix with the meanings “resembling, having the nature of,” “made of,” occurringin loanwords from Latin (cretaceous; herbaceous) and forming adjectives in English on the Latin model (ceraceous), esp. adjectival correspondents to taxonomic names ending in -acea and -aceae (rosaceous)
Examples of 'carbonaceous' in a sentence
carbonaceous
For scientists, the chance of obtaining chunks of a carbonaceous asteroid is exciting.