Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small, solidified fragment of lava.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A small stone; specifically, in the plural, fragmentary materials ejected from volcanoes in eruption, varying in size from that of a pea to that of a walnut. They are sometimes so cellular in structure as to float on the surface of water.
- n. In anatomy, an ear-stone; an otolith; one of the hard concretions found in the fluid of the labyrinth of the ear of many animals. See otolith.
Etymologies
- Latin, diminutive of lapis, stone.
Examples
“I don't see it being cheaper to max out rendering capacity on laptops any time soon, and then there is the issue of heat ... lapillus delightt”
“Accretionary lapilli are formed in an eruption column or cloud by moisture or electrostatic forces, with the volcanic ash nucleating on some object and then accreting to it in layers before the accretionary lapillus falls from the cloud.”
“Nucella lapillus is an intertidal snail commonly found on the rocky coasts of the North Atlantic.”
An intertidal snail increases in size since the early 20th century
“Comparison of shell sizes of N. lapillus from 19 sites.”
An intertidal snail increases in size since the early 20th century
“Fisher et al. have discovered that between 1915-1922 and 2007, the shell length of N. lapillus at 19 sites around Mount Desert Island, Maine increased by an average of 22.6%.”
An intertidal snail increases in size since the early 20th century
“This issue contains articles on the use of dog whelks (Nucella lapillus) to produce purple dye, neolithic ornaments made from shells of the spiny oyster Spondylus gaederopus, the clausiliid snail Papillifera papillaris (by yours truly), an obituary for Nicholas Shackleton (1937-2006) and other useful bits of information on mollusks and archaeology.”
“Since, according to our modern researches into this dye, one fish, the common _Purpura lapillus_, produces only about one drop of the liquor, then it would take about 10,000 fish to dye 1 lb. of wool, so that”
“Pliny, [285] which is the _Purpura lapillus_ of modern naturalists; the”
“The following marine shells occur mixed with the freshwater species above enumerated: -- Buccinum undatum, Littorina littorea, Nassa reticulata, Purpura lapillus, Tellina solidula, Cardium edule, and fragments of some others.”
“The very common shell _Purpura lapillus_, for instance, is found in our raised beaches, in our Clyde beds, in our boulder clays and mammaliferous crags, and, finally, in the Red Crag, beyond which it fails to appear.”
The Testimony of the Rocks or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lapillus’.
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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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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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Cosmicomics
Words found in a collection of short stories by Italo Calvino.
promontory, spire, gauche, diaphanous, lapillus, pallid, patina, menhir, telluric, rarefaction, Devonian, Carboniferous and 18 more...
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