Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or containing porphyry.
- adjective Containing relatively large isolated crystals in a mass of fine texture.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Containing or resembling porphyry; composed of a compact homogeneous rock in which distinct crystals or grains of feldspar or some other minerals are embedded: as, porphyritic granite. Also
porphyraceous , and sometimes, incorrectly, porphyroid.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Min.) Relating to, or resembling, porphyry, that is, characterized by the presence of distinct crystals, as of feldspar, quartz, or augite, in a relatively fine-grained base, often aphanitic or cryptocrystalline.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective of or pertaining to
porphyry - adjective geology containing large
crystals in a fine mass of material
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (of rocks) consisting of porphyry or containing large crystals in a fine groundmass of minerals
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The rock here is a porphyritic granite (porhyritic meaning that the stone has large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrix or groundmass).
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The rock here is a porphyritic granite (porhyritic meaning that the stone has large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrix or groundmass).
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This nature reserve occupies the Scandola peninsula, an impressive porphyritic rock mass.
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On the other side we pass over masses of porphyritic trap, in contact with the same mica schists, and these probably give to the soil the great fertility we observed.
A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries
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To the north the Wady Sawádah divides the granitic Harb from the porphyritic Jebel Sawádah; while the southern Wady Aylán separates the Dibbagh from the Jebel Aylán, a tall form distinctly visible from the Upper Shárr.
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Sinai, grey granite dyked with decaying porphyritic trap, and everywhere veined with white and various-coloured quartzes.
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Where the sandy slopes of South – Eastern Sinai-land end, appears a large white blot, apparently supporting a block, built, like a bastion, upon a tall hill of porphyritic trap.
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The neptunian quartz, again, has everywhere been cut by plutonic injections of porphyritic trap, veins averaging perhaps two metres, with a north-south strike, and a dip of 75 degrees (mag.) west.
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From the offing, also, we note how the later formations, granite and syenite, seamed with a network, and often topped by cones, of porphyritic trap, have upthrust, pierced, and isolated the older
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It ignores the porphyritic sub-range in which the “Mother of the Villages” lies: and it brings close to the east of it the tall peaks of the
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