Definition of "radiocarbon dating" [radiocarbon dating]

• The determination of the approximate age of an ancient object, such as an archaeological specimen, by measuring the amount of carbon 14 it contains. Also called carbon dating, carbon-14 dating. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In the decades since it came to me, the scientific study of documents has made huge strides, from the chemical analysis of writing materials to radiocarbon dating to the grammatical analyses of the words themselves."