Definitions

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

  • noun Silica.
  • noun Finely ground tripoli used as an inert paint filler.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as silica.

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

  • noun (Min.) Silica, SiO2 as found in nature, constituting quarz, and most sands and sandstones. See silica, and silicic.

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

  • noun archaic Flint.
  • noun A finely ground relatively pure form of silicas used as a paint filler etc.

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

  • noun a pure form of finely ground silica
  • noun a vacuum coffee maker

Etymologies

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

[Latin, hard stone, flint.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin silex.

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Examples

  • Other stones, such as silex, for making glass, etc., are found in profusion in various parts of the country, but we have no space to enter into a detailed account of them at present.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 360, November 25, 1882 Various

  • The thoughtlessness which can allow an inference to be extended from a product of disease possessing this susceptibility of multiplication when conveyed into the living body, to substances of inorganic origin, such as silex or sulphur, would be capable of arguing that a pebble may produce a mountain, because an acorn can become a forest.

    Medical Essays, 1842-1882 Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

  • The thoughtlessness which can allow an inference to be extended from a product of disease possessing this susceptibility of multiplication when conveyed into the living body, to substances of inorganic origin, such as silex or sulphur, would be capable of arguing that a pebble may produce a mountain, because an acorn can become a forest.

    Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

  • También se están analizando la lítica tallada y destaca la gran cantidad de lascas de silex y de rocas basálticas de grano muy fino.

    Las cosas avanzan r��pidamente « Interactive Dig El Carrizal – Rescuing a Mesoamerican Site 2009

  • Aunque no se han localizado ninguna fuente de estos materiales creemos por la presencia-ausencia de los distintos artefactos que los yacimientos de silex y basalto son locales mientras Ubicación de carrizal, Tres Zapotes y los Tuxtlas que la obsidiana está siendo importada de Puebla y el Pico de Orizaba (la montaña más alta de México).

    Las cosas avanzan r��pidamente « Interactive Dig El Carrizal – Rescuing a Mesoamerican Site 2009

  • “Sawwán” (popularly pronounced Suwán) = “Syenite” from Syrene; generally applied to silex, granite or any hard stone.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The former must explain how thunderbots are transmuted into sharp pieces of silex., the latter how 'natural stones, rocks, and minerals [...] grow in the earth'.

    Stone Tools and Arguments Against Design 2005

  • The winds and waves of the Bay of Biscay have not much consciousness, and yet they have with great care “selected,” from among an infinity of masses of silex of all shapes and sizes, which have been submitted to their action, all the grains of sand below a certain size, and have heaped them by themselves over a great area.

    Essays 2007

  • Nor had those antagonistic forces been dormant, which are always at work wearing down the surface of the land; the great piles of strata had been intersected by many wide valleys, and the trees, now changed into silex, were exposed projecting from the volcanic soil, now changed into rock, whence formerly, in a green and budding state, they had raised their lofty heads.

    Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle 2003

  • I measured one which was fifteen feet in circumference: how surprising it is that every atom of the woody matter in this great cylinder should have been removed and replaced by silex so perfectly that each vessel and pore is preserved!

    Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle 2003

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