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  1. pumice love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A light, porous, glassy lava, used in solid form as an abrasive and in powdered form as a polish and an abrasive.
  2. v. To clean, polish, or smooth with pumice.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Lava having a loose, spongy or cellular structure; lava from which gas or steam has escaped in large quantities while it was becoming consolidated. Pumice is usually a form of obsidian, and contains from 60 to 75 per cent. of silica. It is often so porous as to float on water for a considerable time after being ejected from a volcano. After its pores become tilled with water it sinks to the bottom, its specific gravity being nearly two and a half times that of water.
  2. To polish, rub, or otherwise treat with pumicestone; especially, in silver-plating, to clean with pumice and water, as the surface of an article to be plated.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A light, porous type of pyroclastic igneous rock, formed during explosive volcanic eruptions when liquid lava is ejected into the air as a froth containing masses of gas bubbles. As the lava solidifies, the bubbles are frozen into the rock.
  2. v. transitive To abrade or roughen with pumice.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Min.) A very light porous volcanic scoria, usually of a gray color, the pores of which are capillary and parallel, giving it a fibrous structure. It is supposed to be produced by the disengagement of watery vapor without liquid or plastic lava. It is much used, esp. in the form of powder, for smoothing and polishing. Called also pumice stone.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. rub with pumice, in order to clean or to smoothen
  2. n. a light glass formed on the surface of some lavas; used as an abrasive

Etymologies

  1. From Latin pūmex ("pumice stone"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, from Anglo-Norman pomis, from Late Latin pōmex, from Latin pūmex, alteration of spūma, foam. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The name pumice is derived from the Latin word pumex, meaning foam.”

    Pumice

  • “For a similar style, try Old Navy's cropped cotton twill blazer in pumice.”

    Fashion Forward: Blanchett is bright in Armani's Black Lace makeup

  • “Lava Soap contains a fine grit of pumice, which is death on grease and grime, but tough on the skin.”

    99 and 44/100 Percent Pure ...

  • “So-called pumice-concrete "hollow floor fillers" can be used in constructing ribbed floors (Fig. 47), e.g. when there is a shortage of form - work material, since such floors consist exclusively of prefabricated members.”

    3. Precast Pumice-Concrete Building Members

  • “This book is intended to stimulate interest in a line of approach to such problems by describing how to build simple, inexpensive houses out of a very commonplace raw material, namely pumice, i.e. volcanic glass or hardened volcanic froth.”

    1. Introduction

  • “Pozzolana identified as pumice, yellow fine-grained tuff, volcanic ash.”

    Chapter 9

  • “When the lighter superficial lava is brought suddenly into contact with water, as when a lava-stream enters the sea, it becomes still lighter and more porous -- forming the well-known substance called pumice, so much used for polishing.”

    Wonders of Creation

  • “Porous volcanic rock called pumice and Southern pine bark.”

    dispatch.com: RSS

  • “Other landscape features include crater lakes, fumaroles, lava tubes, sulfur fields and a great variety of lava and other ejecta such as pumice, ash and tuff.”

    Galápagos National Park & Galápagos Marine Resources Reserve, Ecuador

  • “Bricks made of diatomatious earth (Kieselguhr), loose diatomatious earth or some other material such as pumice stone, or even air gaps can be used as a means of containing the heat.”

    3. Technical and Production Information

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Lists

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Comments

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  • hernesheir Obviously a corruption of pomace in this case. Sep 17, 2009

  • hernesheir (n.) Moonshiners' term for crushed fermented fruit and sugar used to make brandy. Pumice was stirred during heating with a stir stick. Aug 25, 2009

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‘pumice’ has been looked up 2049 times, added to 14 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 12.