Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A light, porous, glassy lava, used in solid form as an abrasive and in powdered form as a polish and an abrasive.
- v. To clean, polish, or smooth with pumice.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- v. transitive To abrade or roughen with pumice.
GNU Webster's 1913
- 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
- v. rub with pumice, in order to clean or to smoothen
- n. a light glass formed on the surface of some lavas; used as an abrasive
Etymologies
- From Latin pūmex ("pumice stone"). (Wiktionary)
- 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Pozzolana identified as pumice, yellow fine-grained tuff, volcanic ash.”
“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.”
“Porous volcanic rock called pumice and Southern pine bark.”
“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.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pumice’.
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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Of Mice and Men
Words with consecutive sequences of m-i-c-e or m-e-n.
pumice, vermicelli, Comice, cognomen, agnomen, amenable, mice, men, women, praenomen, mention, hemicellulose and 12 more...
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Blue Ridge Mountains Moonshiners' Terms
List of terms for items and the process for creating illegal whiskey.
backins, double run, thumper, thumper keg, thump barrel, bead, beading oil, beer, teedum, blackpot, submarine still, boiler and 24 more...
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Volcanic Action
volcancellation, mofette, pozzuolana, puy, rapillo, solfatara, canagua, delabrated, efflagration, maccaluba, Plinian, salinelle and 46 more...
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Kapok Vest and Other Floaty Words
List of words and things buoyant.
kapok vest, balsa wood, pumice, buoy, lifebuoy, dan, soap bubble, styrofoam, oil, foam, cloud, smoke ring and 44 more...
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P words
Only the most awesome 'P' words
palinode, palinola, palzogony, pyrrhotism, pulchritude, phocine, pierine, pi, pit, pitty, proton, pyromania and 10 more...
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Rubbies
Words and things that rub me wrong
eclectic, canon, flesh, irregardless, conversate, can't, mandatory, war on christmas, male bonding, pissa, parochial, infallible and 98 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, P
pellucid, pertain, pampas, prate, pinecone, philistine, pantocrator, papaverine, postmeridian, potlatch, pharology, pinniped and 622 more...
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Linguistic Perps
These words mean business. I dare you to pick a fight with these words. Or make fun of their shoes. The only way these words could possibly get any tougher would be for James Earl Jones to say them...
stein, boulder, cranium, blasphemy, crusher, sarcophagus, vengeance, banshee, pumice, crucible, purgatory, menace and 15 more...
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An odd menagerie
Some of the creatures found in the Octopus's Garden.
vamoose, snowcat, moscow, firefox, jailbird, sawhorse, bumblepuppy, shoofly, hangdog, megabuck, engraven, brickbat and 49 more...
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foamy swills
pounce, pumice, foam, spume, souffle, scoria, tuff, meerschaum, sinter, cinder, spumescent, grumous and 28 more...
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Lampbane's List of Words That She Has...
Title says it all. Because.
conniption, enigma, equitable, sublimate, conglomeration, niggardly, octave, vitriol, clandestine, uvula, caveat, pointillism and 37 more...
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P
porcelain, pearl, purr, princess, pray, peachy, pillow, pebble, periwinkle, peppermint, plush, plush and 44 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pumice.

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