Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the so-called bituminous substances which are widely diffused over the earth, and are of great practical importance. See bitumen and bituminous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun dated asphalt

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He even used the tar from the seepage, known as asphaltum, to waterproof two of his ships, just as the native Chumash Indians did with their canoes.

    Most Oil in Santa Barbara Channel Is Natural Seepage 2008

  • The roofing paper prepared with distilled tar is perhaps most suitably called asphaltum paper, as this has been used in its manufacture.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, September 26, 1891 Various

  • The tar pits contain L.A.’s earliest resource, pitch as in “pitch black”, which is really solidified petroleum, also called asphaltum, a thick layer of goo between the surface and L.A.’s later, deeper resource, oil.

    I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen Amy Wilentz 2006

  • The tar pits contain L.A.’s earliest resource, pitch as in “pitch black”, which is really solidified petroleum, also called asphaltum, a thick layer of goo between the surface and L.A.’s later, deeper resource, oil.

    I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen Amy Wilentz 2006

  • And I have left the bones of my transient carcasses in pond bottoms, and glacial gravels, and asphaltum lakes.

    Chapter 21 2010

  • No use of concrete or asphaltum to pave roads and other areas

    HadCru Temperature « Climate Audit 2007

  • The black stones are actually gray ones that have been coated with asphaltum.

    Random Beach Art 2006

  • I like the description of preboom Los Angeles that McWilliams cites: “a town of crooked, ungraded, unpaved streets; low, lean, rickety, adobe houses, with flat asphaltum roofs, and here and there an indolent native, hugging the inside of a blanket.”

    I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen Amy Wilentz 2006

  • I like the description of preboom Los Angeles that McWilliams cites: “a town of crooked, ungraded, unpaved streets; low, lean, rickety, adobe houses, with flat asphaltum roofs, and here and there an indolent native, hugging the inside of a blanket.”

    I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen Amy Wilentz 2006

  • The black stones are actually gray ones that have been coated with asphaltum.

    Archive 2006-03-01 2006

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