oolith

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See also: Oolith

English

WOTD – 31 May 2021

Etymology

Ooliths (sense 1) or ooids from a beach on the Joulter Cays in the Bahamas.
A piece of oolite, occasionally known as oolith (sense 2), from Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany. Oolite is a type of rock composed of ooliths (sense 1) or ooids.

Borrowed from Late Latin oolithus; the Latin word was coined by the German doctor and mineralogist Franz Ernst Brückmann (1697–1753) as a translation of German Rogenstein (“oolite”) (Rogen (“fish roe”) + Stein (“stone”)).[1] Oolithus is derived from Ancient Greek ᾠόν (ōión, “egg; seed”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew- (“to clothe oneself, dress; to be dressed”), in the sense of a bird being clothed in feathers) + λῐ́θος (líthos, “a stone; stone as a substance”) (see further at that entry),[2] analysable as oo- +‎ -lith.

Pronunciation

Noun

oolith (plural ooliths)

  1. (geology) A spherical granule of which oolite is composed, formed by concentric accretion of thin layers of a mineral (usually calcium carbonate (limestone) but also others such as dolomite and silica) around a core; an ooid.
    Synonym: (rare) oolite
  2. (rare) Oolite.

Translations

References

  1. ^ Francisci Ernesti Brückmanni [i.e., Franz Ernst Brückmann] (1721) Specimen Physicum Exhibens Historiam Naturalem Oolithi seu Ovariorum Piscium & Concharum in Saxa Mutatorum, Helmstedt, Lower Saxony: Salomonis Schnorrii , →OCLC.
  2. ^ “oolith, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “oolith, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

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