Basalt

//bəˈsɔlt// name, noun

name, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A hard mafic igneous rock of varied mineral content; volcanic in origin, which makes up much of the Earth's oceanic crust. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    the commonest type of solidified lava; a dense dark grey fine-grained igneous rock that is composed chiefly of plagioclase feldspar and pyroxene wordnet
  3. 3
    A type of unglazed pottery. countable, uncountable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A home rule municipality of Eagle County and Pitkin County, Colorado.
  2. 2
    A city and town in Bingham County, Idaho.
  3. 3
    A locality in the Shire of Hepburn, central western Victoria, Australia.

Synonyms

All synonyms
aaabyssal rockbedrockblock lavabrashbreccia

Example

More examples

"The young Russian geologist hammered off a piece of the stone and minutely examined it. "Basalt!" he cried rapturously, passing a fragment of the rock to his German colleague."

Etymology

From Late Latin basaltes, a misspelling of Latin basanites, from Ancient Greek βασανίτης (basanítēs), from βάσανος (básanos, “touchstone”), from Egyptian bḫn (“a hard stone”), b-x:n-O39

Related phrases

alkali basaltplateau basaltpillow lava

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