Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A crude sodium nitrate occurring naturally in Chile, Peru, and the southwest United States, used as fertilizer.
- n. See sodium nitrate.
- n. See hardpan.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The local South American name of the native impure nitrate of soda (Chili saltpeter), of much importance in the commerce of South America.
Wiktionary
- n. mineralogy A crude form of sodium nitrate from South America; used as a fertilizer.
- n. A layer of hard clay subsoil; hardpan.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. a deposit of sand or clay on the surface containing crystallized salts such as sodium chloride or sodium nitrate; -- used especially of the sodium nitrate deposits of Chile and Peru.
- n. a stratum of calcium carbonate in the soil of an arid or semiarid region.
WordNet 3.0
- n. nitrate-bearing rock or gravel of the sodium nitrate deposits of Chile and Peru
- n. crust or layer of hard subsoil encrusted with calcium-carbonate occurring in arid or semiarid regions
Etymologies
- American Spanish, from Spanish, pebble in a brick, flake of lime, from cal, lime, from Latin calx, calc-, lime; see calx. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term caliche is Spanish and is originally from the Latin calx, meaning lime.”
“In alkaline soils of arid and semiarid areas a white, nonporous layer composed mainly of calcium carbonate and known as caliche, can form in this horizon, and if it is too close to the surface it may cause problems with root growth and drainage (Box 9.3).”
“There is also a thick layer of hard clay, known as caliche, that allows the heavy planes to be stored on the desert without a concrete pad or steel for parking.”
“It contains calcareous matter; the sandy soil grades down to a thick arenaceous "caliche" which is a layer of sand cemented into a limestone by interstitial deposition of calcium carbonate.”
“In the desert Daniel glides over rocky caliche and scrub brush.”
“Holly turned in through the open gate and onto the pitted caliche road, which desperately needed to be graded, and bounced up to the house.”
“They put the tools in the back of the pickup and barreled up the caliche road to the Fisher house.”
“I dreamt within the caliche army slaughter-dogs of chalk and beasts that not for quiet hunger blazed:”
“I'd climbed across the outside of it, kicking up dust from that caliche baked hard in the sun, to a clump of oaks along the rim.”
“He watched the agent walk across the blindingly white caliche parking lot.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘caliche’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Stuffie: Crunchie
Stuff that's crunchy.
caliche, twigs, rice cakes, cheerios, dry leaves, snow, matzo crackers, fried wontons, corn chips, cinder, gravel paths, ice crystals and 14 more...
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work these into conversation
Challenge!
legerdemain, polysemic, rupestrian, callipygian, oscitancy, numen, lucubration, asperity, amalgam, apposite, wastrel, eleemosynary and 208 more...
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word set 12
plasmasphere, cockatrice, delimitable, precipitancy, trellising, thermochromism, cadenza, tentaculiferous, fluctiferous, circumambient, loblolly, trailing edge and 142 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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willson's Words
kestrel, merlin, cormorant, newt, eschew, needless, heedless, caliche, sendero
Tweets
Looking for tweets for caliche.
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