Shale
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A shell or husk; a cod or pod. countable, uncountable
"the green shales of a bean"
- 2 a sedimentary rock formed by the deposition of successive layers of clay wordnet
- 3 A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure. countable, uncountable
"As on all large green roofs, the soil is not dirt exactly but a gravel-like growing medium of granulated pumice, shales, clays and other minerals."
- 1 To take off the shell or coat of.
Example
More examples"Shale rock is a sedimentary rock made up of clay, compacted together by pressure."
Etymology
From Middle English schale (“shell, husk; scale”), from Old English sċealu (“shell, husk, pod”), from Proto-West Germanic *skalu, from Proto-Germanic *skalō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cut”), from *(s)kel- (“to split, cleave”). See also West Frisian skaal (“dish”), Dutch schaal (“shell”), schalie (“shale”), German Schale (“husk, pod”); also Lithuanian skalà (“splinter”), Old Church Slavonic скала (skala, “rock, stone”), Polish skała (“rock”), Albanian halë (“fish bone, splinter”), Sanskrit कल (kalá, “small part”); also Hittite [script needed] (iškalla, “to tear apart, slit open”), Lithuanian skélti (“to split”), Ancient Greek σκάλλω (skállō, “to hoe, harrow”). Doublet of scale. See also shell.