soapstone

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English

Untreated soapstone.

Etymology

soap +‎ stone; so called because the archetypal varieties of the stone resemble soap in multiple ways: their feel, appearance, and carvability. First use appears c. 1681, in the writings of Nehemiah Grew.

Noun

soapstone (countable and uncountable, plural soapstones)

  1. (geology) A soft rock, rich in talc, also containing serpentine and either magnetite, dolomite or calcite.
    • 2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 3, in The Secret of Our Success , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN:
      To have a reliable fire, you'll need to carve a lamp from soapstone (you know what soapstone looks like, right?), render some oil for the lamp from blubber, and make a wick out of a particular species of moss.
  2. (mineralogy) Synonym of saponite

Synonyms

Translations

Verb

soapstone (third-person singular simple present soapstones, present participle soapstoning, simple past and past participle soapstoned)

  1. (transitive) To scrub with soapstone.

Further reading

Anagrams