Aragonite

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An evaporite consisting of anhydrous calcium carbonate with the chemical formula CaCO₃ and occurring in pearls, shells and nacre; it is dimorphous with calcite. countable, uncountable

    "The basic chemical material of molluscan shells is calcium carbonate, which forms the outer layer of calcite, and the inner layer of aragonite, which is a heavier and harder substance although it has the same chemical composition."

  2. 2
    a mineral form of crystalline calcium carbonate; dimorphic with calcite wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
oserskite

Example

More examples

"The basic chemical material of molluscan shells is calcium carbonate, which forms the outer layer of calcite, and the inner layer of aragonite, which is a heavier and harder substance although it has the same chemical composition."

Etymology

From Aragon + -ite, after the province in Spain, named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1790.

Related phrases

calcium carbonatechemical formulasaline evaporite

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.