Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See soapstone.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Soapstone: an impure massive variety of talc. Also called potstone.
- n. A gem or seal, cut in steatite.
Wiktionary
- n. mineralogy soapstone
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Min.) A massive variety of talc, of a grayish green or brown color. It forms extensive beds, and is quarried for fireplaces and for coarse utensils. Called also
potstone ,lard stone , andsoapstone .
WordNet 3.0
- n. a soft heavy compact variety of talc having a soapy feel; used to make hearths and tabletops and ornaments
Etymologies
- Latin steatītis, a precious stone, from Greek, from stear, steat-, tallow. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Solid forms of talc are known as steatite or soapstone.”
“Sand is commonly met with at the depth of three or four fathoms, and beneath this a stratum of napal or steatite, which is considered as a sign that the metal is near; but the least fallible mark is a red stone, called batu kawi, lying in detached pieces.”
“The rivers, plains, and nearby mountains offered abundant wild animals, fish, and timber, and raw materials such as steatite (talc) and copper.”
“Visitors may recognize other hallmark Minoan artifacts in the show: clay tablets inscribed with the still-undeciphered Linear A writing, a bull's head rhyton carved from chlorite with gilded horns, and the "Chieftain's Cup," a carved steatite conical cup with processional scene (see photo gallery).”
“And here, yielding to an irresistible impulse, I wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from”
“The bowl was of soft stone, apparently steatite, which, when fresh, is easily fashioned with a knife.”
“Also of Egyptian manufacture is the beautiful glazed steatite scarab inscribed with a knot design typical of the late Middle Kingdom (mid to late Dynasty 13) unearthed on the very first day of the 2001 excavations.”
“Nearby excavations have also yielded some noteworthy finds: a terra-cotta house model probably used as a bird cage and a two-by-two-inch steatite Harappan Phase seal carved with a unicorn motif and 13 script signs.”
“Alabaster bowls, more than a dozen steatite vessels, and fragments of ostrich eggshell containers were also found.”
“In addition to a Bronze Age steatite seal, schist reliefs, and stucco heads, this donation included four fragments of a large Bronze Age silver bowl combining Indian and Mesopotamian stylistic characteristics in depicting a frieze of bulls.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘steatite’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery-s
from phrontistery.info
sabaton, sabbatarian, sabbulonarium, sabelline, sabin, sable, sabliere, sabot, sabretache, sabulous, saburration, saccade and 1593 more...
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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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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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Geology
baraboo, monadnock, peneplain, endrumpf, peneplanation, cairngorm, paleooology, stream capture, allochthon, slickensides, graywacke, tectonics and 56 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for steatite.
yarb "I wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from South America that particularly took my fancy."
- Wells, The Time Machine Jun 5, 2008