freestone
Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word freestone. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word freestone, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say freestone in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word freestone you have here. The definition of the word freestone will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition offreestone, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
See also: Freestone and free-stone
English
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈfɹiːstəʊn/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈfɹiːstoʊn/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -iːstəʊn
Noun
freestone (countable and uncountable, plural freestones)
- Sedimentary rock: a type of stone that is composed of small particles and easily shaped, most commonly sandstone or limestone.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
- Mr Allworthy […] died immensely rich and built an hospital […] but had he done nothing more I should have left him to have recorded his own merit on some fair freestone over the door of that hospital.
- 1853, John Ruskin, “IV, St. Mark's”, in The Stones of Venice, volume II (The Sea-Stories), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., , →OCLC, § XXVII, page 77:
- It might, under all the circumstances above stated, have been a question with other builders, whether to import one shipload of costly jaspers, or twenty of chalk flints; and whether to build a small church faced with porphyry and paved with agate, or to raise a vast cathedral in freestone.
- (countable) A stone fruit having a stone (pit) that is relatively free of the flesh.
Coordinate terms
- (stone fruit): clingstone
Translations
sedimentary rock, most commonly sandstone or limestone