Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Rock composed of sharp-angled fragments embedded in a fine-grained matrix.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In geology, a conglomerate in which the fragments, instead of being rounded or water-worn, are angular. The term is most frequently applied to volcanic masses made up of fragments which have become consolidated into rock before becoming rounded by friction against each other or by the action of water.
Wiktionary
- n. geology A rock composed of angular fragments in a matrix that may be of a similar or a different material.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Geol.) A rock composed of angular fragments either of the same mineral or of different minerals, etc., united by a cement, and commonly presenting a variety of colors.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a rudaceous rock consisting of sharp fragments embedded in clay or sand
Etymologies
- From Italian breccia, from Germanic. (Wiktionary)
- Italian, of Germanic origin; see bhreg- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It may also be called a breccia, for it is composed of black fragments, larger or smaller, derived from other rocks, whose angular shape indicates that they have not travelled far from the spots where they occur.”
“A breccia is a rock made up of angular pebbles or fragments of other rocks.”
“Many beds of siliceous gravel are cemented together by a siliceous cement, and are called breccia; as the plumb-pudding stones of”
The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation
“Uranium mining in the geologic formations known as breccia pipes that abound in the area around the Grand Canyon did occur during the 1980s but diminished as the prices dropped.”
“Squeezing through the narrow walls -- some are smooth marble, others multicolored rock fragments called breccia that appear to be cemented together -- the forces that carve and polish Mosaic Canyon with each passing storm are easy to appreciate.”
“In some cases rare stone types, such as breccia corallina, cipollino marina and some as yet unidentified stone types were used.”
“I am afraid that -- what between squeezing and heating -- she would flatten us all out into phosphatic fossils, about an inch thick; and turn Winchester city into a "breccia" which would puzzle geologists a hundred thousand years hence.”
“As the San Francisco Chronicle reports: Steve Squyres, a Cornell astronomer and the rover's chief scientist, said Thursday that the rugged rock is a form of breccia, jumbled fragments of minerals cemented together and apparently thrown up from beneath the planet's surface by some monstrous impact that happened millions - or perhaps billions - of years ago.”
The Huffington Post: James M. Gentile: Innovations In Space Technology Are Still Key
“In between the two parts, a limestone breccia is present, and the Düzen plateau is bordered by sandstone.”
Archaeometrical Study of Craft Activities « Interactive Dig Sagalassos – City in the Clouds
“However, in the excavation layers at Tepe Düzen and in the virgin soil on top of the limestone and limestone breccia bedrock, many special minerals such as grossular (a garnet), tourmaline and magnetite (an iron ore) are found.”
Archaeometrical Study of Craft Activities « Interactive Dig Sagalassos – City in the Clouds
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘breccia’.
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phrontistery - b
List of words from phrontistery.info
bywoner, byssus, byssiferous, byssaceous, byrnie, butyric, butyraceous, buttery, buteonine, bunting, burdet, broma and 582 more...
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Pet Rocks and Carbon Footprints
Soil samples for stone soup.
palynology, stratigraphy, tse'bit'ai, tse bitai, tse bit ai, bitai, minette, maar, lithosphere, peridotite, gneiss, gabbro and 115 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Verba Silvestria
Words of the Woods or Words of the Wilds
sylvestral, sylvester, silvester, silvestrian, sylvestrian, silvatic, sylvatic, silvan, sylvan, silva, sylva, nemorose and 108 more...
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Learned (or Encountered) in Reading
I have a list for words learned from Newsweek; here's where I keep all the stuff from other shit I read.
Except when I'm looking stuff up and find new words that way. Those go on their...cellie, laminectomy, mridangam, terroir, hypospadias, crus, corpora cavernosa, crura, uretheral meatus, bartholin's gland, coloquintida, colopexy and 921 more...
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...another list...
I've no idea where I got this page full of words, but whatever it is, I want to find it again. May have duplicate words from other lists.
bicameral, aphelion, dirigible, parhelion, flocculus, vernier, corticate, oxalis, pandanus, calabash, plumbago, jonquil and 217 more...
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Random
These are just some random words that I might find a list for someday.
troglodytism, chinkle, vasculum, sabz, cucullus, tricornigerous, cuboctahedron, eruca, gamp, pilum, taha, angelhood and 244 more...
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...:::bella:::...
originally started as an attempt to collect words I found visually and auditorially beautiful, as well as psychically evocative, this has become nothing more than a grab bag of word curiosities, a ...
bergamot, jambalaya, bee's knees, heliotrope, hosanna, gamboge, aureole, filial, madrigal, multilingual, sacrosanct, sojourn and 1072 more...
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The word collector
My collection of words that are intriguing, but don't fit my other lists.
snailery, aplasia, postulant, aigrette, caravel, frigate, capeskin, suffusion, schist, varlet, sepulchral, anisotropy and 317 more...
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elegant earth words
Because the other elements see all the beauty. Yet earth is viridian foliage and crystalline chasms, glittering seams of frozen light and vast mountainous expanses. Look these words up, and discove...
lapidescent, rupestrine, chthonian, argilliferous, crystalline, champaign, saprolite, epierogeny, archipelago, yggdrasil, geognosis, geolatry and 23 more...
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June 2011
revivify, assimilability, trichotillomania, thalassocracy, prodrome, watteau, keelhaul, maelstrom, glossolalia, ethereal, turophile, piccalilli and 44 more...
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SHIT I HAD TO LOOK UP
asperity, vicissitude, interregnum, unctuous, hermeneutics, ontology, eschatological, nescient, quorum, paean, perspicacious, cantrip and 40 more...
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the geologist
I like rocks. And all the names attributed to rocks and other geologic formations. Also see the earth list.
gneiss, breccia, granite, sedimentary, metamorphic, shale, igneous, geode, gabbro, lapillus, sandstone, limestone and 13 more...
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new words
glib, mendacity, cogent, moot, feckless, piquancy, bumptious, voluble, tantan, sparble, cerastes, palanquin and 36 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for breccia.

artoparts Specifically: volcanic breccia. Jan 29, 2009