Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The solid rock that underlies loose material, such as soil, sand, clay, or gravel.
- noun The very basis; the foundation.
- noun The lowest point.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In mining, the older crystalline and slaty rocks which underlie the unconsolidated gravelly and volcanic beds of Tertiary and Post-tertiary ages, along the flanks of the Sierra Nevada.
- noun Hence That which underlies anything else, as a foundation; bottom layer; lowest stratum.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- (Mining) The solid rock underlying superficial formations. Also Fig.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable, geology, mining, engineering, construction The
solid rock that exists at some depth below theground surface . Bedrock is rock "in place", as opposed to material that has beentransported from another location byweathering anderosion . - noun A
basis orfoundation .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun solid unweathered rock lying beneath surface deposits of soil
- noun principles from which other truths can be derived
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word bedrock.
Examples
-
Because of the recent financial meltdown and the newly straitened circumstances of many Americans, certain bedrock virtues — thrift, faith, community, hard work — are enjoying a renaissance, according to John Gerzema and Michael D 'Antonio in Spend Shift.
Business Ted Malloch 2010
-
This is what would have to happen to bring down either tower, since the inner cores — the dense grid of 47 massive steel columns anchored in bedrock — were the primary vertical support for the towers.
-
To erode that bedrock is to subscribe, to a “divine right of kings” theory of governance, in which those who govern are absolved from adhering to the basic moral standards to which the governed are accountable.
-
To erode that bedrock is to risk even further injustice.
-
The bedrock is an ancient, heavily eroded Cambrian metamorphic plateau dramatically punctuated by a chain of isolated flat-topped mountains.
-
First, as the article points out, to achieve their goal they'd have to change the laws of physics since the Holland Tunnel is buried in bedrock and the worst that could happen to the tunnel itself would be a cascade of rocks and mud.
July 2006 2006
-
I believe that the United States of America was founded on certain bedrock principles - that all men are created equal and are endowed with inalienable rights.
-
We have reached a certain bedrock of intransigence in
Professing Literature: John Guillory's Misreading of Paul de Man 2005
-
But The Masters, steeped in convention that seemed immovable as bedrock, is changing.
-
Heavy buildings, especially multistory structures that are not anchored in bedrock, can tip over or sink into soil after it liquefies.
reesetee commented on the word bedrock
This word will forever put me in mind of the Flintstones. ;-)
February 20, 2007