Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or being a surface characterized by smooth, shell-like convexities and concavities, as on fractured obsidian.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In mineralogy, having convex elevations and concave depressions like shells: applied principally to such a surface produced by fracture, as exemplified in obsidian.
- In mathematics, pertaining or relating to the conchoid: as, Holm's conchoidal screw.
Wiktionary
- adj. Describing a type of irregular fracture that occurs in materials with no natural plane of separation, such as flint.
- adj. having smooth shell-shaped convex and concave surfaces.
- adj. having such a fracture.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Having elevations or depressions in form like one half of a bivalve shell; -- applied principally to a surface produced by fracture.
Etymologies
- From Greek konkhoeidēs, mussellike : konkho-, concho- + -oeidēs, -oid.
Examples
“This is referred to as conchoidal fracture; glass fractures in the same way.”
“When someone breaks a window the glass shatters in a series of conchoidal breaks—curved fracture lines.”
“The conchoidal fractures began on the clean side of the glass and ended on the dirty side.”
“When someone breaks a window the glass shatters in a series of conchoidal breaks — curved fracture lines.”
The Coffin Dancer
“This one can see by the traces of conchoidal fracture which they all show.”
“There were built-up fabrics, called _Charlottes_, caky externally, pulpy within; there were also _marangs_, and likewise custards, -- some of the indolent-fluid sort, others firm, in which every stroke of the teaspoon left a smooth, conchoidal surface like the fracture of chalcedony, with here and there”
“At ordinary temperatures ebonite is hard and brittle and breaks with a well-marked conchoidal fracture.”
“The twigs soon become encrusted with a mammelated substance of a red colour more or less deep, nearly transparent, hard, and having a brilliant conchoidal fracture.”
Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists
“The white flakes do not exhibit the true conchoidal fracture in such perfection elsewhere; nor break off in such delicious morsels, edged with delicate brown.”
“Gilsonite or Uintahite — A brittle variety of asphalt, lustrous black in color, with a conchoidal fracture.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘conchoidal’.
-
Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 624 more...
-
Minerals and Mineralogy
List of minerals, elements, group names and geochemistry terms encountered in the science of mineralogy. I've chosen to avoid capital letters in most examples, though a great many mineral names hon...
galkhaite, xanthoconite, pyrostilpnite, polybasite, pyrargyrite, djurleite, digenite, covellite, chalcocite, cerargirite, acanthite, aeschynite and 2536 more...
-
Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7762 more...
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.