Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Material that settles to the bottom of a liquid; lees.
  • noun Solid fragments of inorganic or organic material that come from the weathering of rock and are carried and deposited by wind, water, or ice.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The matter which settles to the bottom of water or any other liquid; settlings; lees; dregs; in geology, detrital material mechanically suspended in or deposited from water; the material of which the sedimentary rocks are composed.
  • To allow to settle; settle: said of matter in suspension in a liquid.
  • noun In a steam-boiler, an internal deposit of precipitate from the feed-water, or of solid matter mechanically present, which lies as a loose or soft mud on the heating surfaces: distinguished from scale, which is a hard crystalline coating adhering to the metal.

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

  • noun The matter which subsides to the bottom, from water or any other liquid; settlings; lees; dregs.
  • noun (Geol.) The material of which sedimentary rocks are formed.

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

  • noun A collection of small particles, particularly dirt, that precipitates from a river or other body of water.
  • verb transitive To deposit material as a sediment.
  • verb intransitive To be deposited as a sediment.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb settle as sediment
  • verb deposit as a sediment
  • noun matter that has been deposited by some natural process

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin sedimentum, act of settling, from sedēre, to sit, settle; see sed- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin sedimentum < sedeō.

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Examples

  • E. coli was deteced in sediment samples but no standards exist for determining human health risks from E. coli in soil or sediment.

    Eco-Justice 2009

  • But Dr. Atiq Rahman, a lead author of a UN report on climate change, says this may not make the country any less vulnerable: “The rate at which sediment is deposited and new land is created is much slower than the rate at which climate change and sea level rises are taking place.”

    Prunings XLVIII 2008

  • E. coli was deteced in sediment samples but no standards exist for determining human health risks from E. coli in soil or sediment.

    Hurricane Katrina 2007

  • Floats are tethered to the trees so that once felled, no sediment is disturbed.

    “REDISCOVERED” WOOD & THE TRITON SAWFISH | Inhabitat 2006

  • That hamburger is greasy and leaves a thin sediment of garbage floating queasily at the bottom of my stomach.

    Triumph! susitna 2005

  • Levees have cut off the normal overflow of sediment from the Mississippi River which would otherwise gradually rebuild the coast. realist says:

    Should New Orleans be rebuilt? « BuzzMachine 2005

  • Once brought to the surface, its contents can be analyzed to determine how much sediment is in the water.

    Living in Dryden: July 2004 Archives 2004

  • Once brought to the surface, its contents can be analyzed to determine how much sediment is in the water.

    Living in Dryden: Six Mile Creek Monitoring training 2004

  • Since 2006 he participates in the Sagalasoss Project and so far, most of his research in Sagalassos focuses on the long-term sediment dynamics of the Bügdüz catchment in the western part of the territory of Sagalassos.

    Interactive Dig Sagalassos - Staff Profiles 2003

  • The sediment is sago in its first stage – a fine powder, which is at once packed into cylinder-like cases for export.

    Insulinde: Experiences of a Naturalist's Wife in the Eastern Archipelago 1887

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