Greywacke

//ˈɡɹeɪ.wæk// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A hard dark sandstone with poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments in a compact, clay-fine matrix. countable, uncountable

    "Endless bleak, rounded hills composed of shales and ribs of tough ‘greywackes’ make up the Southern Uplands – all of such rocks were originally deposited under marine conditions."

Example

More examples

"Endless bleak, rounded hills composed of shales and ribs of tough ‘greywackes’ make up the Southern Uplands – all of such rocks were originally deposited under marine conditions."

Etymology

Anglicised form of grauwacke.

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