Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A fossil tooth; specifically, a fossil tooth or bone of a bright-blue color, occurring in the Tertiary. Compare bone-turquoise.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Min.) A fossil tooth colored a bright blue by phosphate of iron. It is used as an imitation of turquoise, and hence called bone turquoise.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mineralogy A fossil tooth coloured a bright blue by iron phosphate, used as an imitation turquoise.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

odonto- + -lite

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Examples

  • So that around the bones there eventually appears a beautiful turquoise casing; the bone centre is also coloured like its casing, though not entirely losing its bony characteristics, so that it really forms a kind of ossified turquoise, surrounded by real turquoise, and this is called the "bone turquoise" or "odontolite."

    The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones John Mastin

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