Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A buff to gray windblown deposit of fine-grained, calcareous silt or clay.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In geology, originally, a certain loamy deposit in the valley of the Rhine; now, by extension, any detrital accumulation more or less resembling the original loess occurring in other parts of the world.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Geol.) A quaternary deposit, usually consisting of a fine yellowish earth, on the banks of the Rhine and other large rivers.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geology Any
sediment , dominated bysilt , ofeolian (wind-blown) origin.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a fine-grained unstratified accumulation of clay and silt deposited by the wind
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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A certain deposit called loess or hwang-t'u (yellow earth) covers a great part of
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 3: Brownson-Clairvaux 1840-1916 1913
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Together with previously reported U-series dating of speleothem calcite and palaeomagnetic stratigraphy, as well as sedimentological considerations, these layers may be further correlated to S6-S7 in Chinese loess stratigraphy or marine isotope stages (MIS) 17-19, in the range of ∼ 0.68 to 0.78
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Together with previously reported U-series dating of speleothem calcite and palaeomagnetic stratigraphy, as well as sedimentological considerations, these layers may be further correlated to S6-S7 in Chinese loess stratigraphy or marine isotope stages (MIS) 17-19, in the range of ∼ 0.68 to 0.78
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Soils are silty and loamy, and formed in loess, which is thinner than in neighboring 27b, and with areas of sandy soils formed in sandstone.
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River here you have a covering of what the Germans call loess, fine, wind-blown material, silt loam.
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In northern China an area as large as France is deeply covered with a yellow pulverulent earth called loess (German, loose), which many consider a dust deposit blown from the great
The Elements of Geology William Harmon Norton 1900
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The bluffs before alluded to often consist of a terrace of gravel, from 30 to 40 feet in thickness, covered by an older loess, which is continuous as we ascend the valley to
The Antiquity of Man Charles Lyell 1836
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Intimately connected with the subjects treated of in the last chapter, is the nature, origin, and age of certain loamy deposits, commonly called loess, which form a marked feature in the superficial deposits of the basins of the Rhine, Danube, and some other large rivers draining the Alps, and which extend down the
The Antiquity of Man Charles Lyell 1836
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They know that they like to farm in places with green soils, what we would call loess.
NYT > Home Page By AMANDA SCHMIDT 2011
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All of them are made of the same earth as that which lies around them -- a light, sandy loess which is easily removed with a shovel, requiring no picking or other loosening.
Archeological Investigations Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 Gerard Fowke 1894
trivet commented on the word loess
a loamy deposit formed by wind, usually yellowish and calcareous, common in the Mississippi Valley and in Europe and Asia.
Origin: 1825–35; < G Löss < Swiss G lösch loose, slack (sch taken as a dial. equivalent of G s), akin to G lose
May 31, 2007
jennarenn commented on the word loess
What a pretty word! I love those lush o-sounds.
May 31, 2007