Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small, usually spheroidal body consisting of radiating crystals, found in obsidian and other glassy lava rocks.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A vitreous globule, such as those of which perlite is made up, having a more or loss perfectly developed concentric and at the same time decidedly radiating fibrous structure. The highly silicious volcanic rocks not unfrequently have a spherulitic structure.
- n. Same as radiolite, 2.
Wiktionary
- n. a minute spherical crystalline body having a radiated structure, observed in some vitreous volcanic rocks, as obsidian and pearlstone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Min.) A minute spherical crystalline body having a radiated structure, observed in some vitreous volcanic rocks, as obsidian and pearlstone.
Etymologies
- See sphere (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Hydrodynamic processes, mechanically generated in such minuscule water and dust drops, form the shape of the artefact until it becomes a new atmospheric aerosol particle called iberulite with a vortex, quite similar to a micro spherulite.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spherulite’.
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Words of Dinosaurology
This quickly got bigger and weirder than originally intended, so now it's housing terms that relate to the study of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. See also Dinosaurs, Pterosaurs, Ichthy...
zygopophyses, ziphodont, plesiomorphic, cleidoic, endothermy, ectothermy, viviparous, vertebrae, cervical, dorsal, sacral, caudal and 628 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spherulite.
chained_bear There are quite a few paleontological terms in the OED that I've chosen not to list, and also many that I have listed, I haven't posted the exact definitions for (and by "posted" I mean "lifted from the OED"). This is an instance of me choosing one from among several similar terms, and then being too lazy to post the exact stuff, like qroqqa went ahead and did. :)
Thanks, fellas. Sep 16, 2008
qroqqa Actually the OED conflates the genus and the common noun. What it says under 'spherulite' is:
2. Palæont. (With capital initial.) A genus of fossil molluscs.
In early use in L. form Sphærulītēs.
1834 GRIFFITH tr. Cuvier XII. 92 Sphærulites,..where the valves are roughened by irregularly raised plates. 1841 MILLER O.R. Sandst. viii. 153 The hippurites, sphærulites, and nummulites of the same formations, in Greece, Italy, and Spain. 1847 ANSTED Anc. World x. 241 One such genus is called Sphærulite... They seem most nearly allied to the inhabitants of those univalve shells of which the limpet is the present representative.
—OED
Presumably the 'early' form Sphaerulites had precedence so has been restored as the genus name over Sphaerulite, but the common noun for a member of it (as in their Miller quotation) is 'sphaerulite' or 'spherulite'. Sep 16, 2008
mollusque No, the genus name is Sphaerulites. (A rare instance of the OED getting it wrong.) Sep 16, 2008
chained_bear In paleontology, a genus of fossil mollusks. Sep 15, 2008