Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An icicle-shaped mineral deposit, usually calcite or aragonite, hanging from the roof of a cavern, formed from the dripping of mineral-rich water.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In decorative architecture of certain schools, a pendent ornament with sharp edges and generally one of many in a group.
- noun A deposit of carbonate of lime, usually resembling in form a huge icicle, which hangs from the roof of a cave or subterranean rock-opening, where it has been slowly formed by deposition from calcareous water trickling downward through cracks or openings in the rocks above.
- noun A similar form of some other mineral species, such as are occasionally observed, for example, of chalcedony, limonite, etc., but only sparingly and on a small scale.
- noun A like form of lava sometimes observed in connection with volcanic outflows.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A pendent cone or cylinder of calcium carbonate resembling an icicle in form and mode of attachment. Stalactites are found depending from the roof or sides of caverns, and are produced by deposition from waters which have percolated through, and partially dissolved, the overlying limestone rocks.
- noun In an extended sense, any mineral or rock of similar form and origin.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geology A
mineral deposit ofcalcium carbonate , in shapes similar toicicles , that hangs from the roof of acave .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a cylinder of calcium carbonate hanging from the roof of a limestone cave
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A stalactite is a mineral deposit that is usually - though not exclusively - found in limestone caves.
Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] Ebrianson 2009
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There are, incidentally, types of stalactites that grow more quickly; in fact, icicles are a kind of stalactite, and there are others that rapidly grow from gypsum, but no one has ever found or fast growing calcite stalactite, nor has anyone ever demonstrated a way to grow one quickly, because the process seems to be intrinsically slow.
Archive 2008-01-01 James Killus 2008
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There are, incidentally, types of stalactites that grow more quickly; in fact, icicles are a kind of stalactite, and there are others that rapidly grow from gypsum, but no one has ever found or fast growing calcite stalactite, nor has anyone ever demonstrated a way to grow one quickly, because the process seems to be intrinsically slow.
Speech to the Creationists James Killus 2008
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You find in a cave, say a stalactite which is dripping water into a pool at a very regular rate, gradually filling it up.
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Basle, and the great fissure of Amarnath in Kashmir, with its icy stalactite which is the special object of worship.
The Age of Erasmus Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London 1901
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They were all tapestried, as it were, with a kind of stalactite, which covered the funnel to the top, with its knobs and chintz-like variation of colors.
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 8 Italy and Greece, Part Two 1885
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They are kissing beneath an elegant stalactite swirling over them like filigree.
The Memory Palace Mira Bartók 2011
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A film pairs the great stalactite of Doolin Cave in north Clare with a choirboy giving a brief performance to the millennia-old giant drip of rock.
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They are kissing beneath an elegant stalactite swirling over them like filigree.
The Memory Palace Mira Bartók 2011
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Writers are stalactite makers, dripping away in the limestone caverns of the mind.
Can writers change the world? Steven V. Roberts, Anita Silvey and Bruce Feiler respond 2010
ruzuzu commented on the word stalactite
"The term "stalactite" was coined in the 17th century by the Danish Physician Ole Worm, who coined the Latin word from the Greek word σταλακτός (stalaktos, "dripping") and the Greek suffix -ίτης (-ites, connected with or belonging to)."
-- From Wikipedia's "Stalactite" entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stalactite&oldid=895316956), which sends us off to the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary, where (at https://www.etymonline.com/word/stalactite#etymonline_v_21976) we find this: ""hanging formation of carbonite of lime from the roof of a cave," 1670s, Englished from Modern Latin stalactites (used 1654 by Olaus Wormius), from Greek stalaktos "dripping, oozing out in drops," from stalassein "to trickle," from PIE root *stag- "to seep, drip, drop" (source also of German stallen, Lithuanian telžiu, telžti "to urinate") + noun suffix -ite (1). Related: Stalactic; stalactitic."
May 31, 2019