Maceral

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A component of coal or oil shale.

    "Inertinite, vitrinite and liptinite are macerals."

Example

More examples

"Inertinite, vitrinite and liptinite are macerals."

Etymology

From Latin mācerō (“macerate”) + -al, after mineral. Coined by British birth control campaigner and paleontologist Marie Stopes in 1935.

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