oolith

See also: Oolith

English

WOTD – 31 May 2021

Etymology

Ooliths (sense 1) or ooids from a beach on the Joulter Cays in the Bahamas.

A piece of oolite, occasionally known as oolith (sense 2), from Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany. Oolite is a type of rock composed of ooliths (sense 1) or ooids.

Borrowed from Late Latin oolithus; the Latin word was coined by the German doctor and mineralogist Franz Ernst Brückmann (1697–1753) as a translation of German Rogenstein (“oolite”) (Rogen (“fish roe”) + Stein (“stone”)). Oolithus is derived from Ancient Greek ᾠόν (ōión, “egg; seed”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew- (“to clothe oneself, dress; to be dressed”), in the sense of a bird being clothed in feathers) + λῐ́θος (líthos, “a stone; stone as a substance”) (see further at that entry), analysable as oo- +‎ -lith.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊəlɪθ/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊəˌlɪθ/
• Hyphenation: oo‧lith

Noun

oolith (plural ooliths)

1. (geology) A spherical granule of which oolite is composed, formed by concentric accretion of thin layers of a mineral (usually calcium carbonate (limestone) but also others such as dolomite and silica) around a core; an ooid.

   Synonym: (rare) oolite

2. (rare) Oolite.

Related terms

• oolite
• oolithic
• oolitic
• oolitiferous (obsolete)

Translations

spherical granule of which oolite is composed — see also ooid

• Arabic: أوليث ('uwlith)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 鮞石 / 鲕石 (zh) (érshí)

• Finnish: ooliitti
• German: Oolith m
• Persian: اولیت ('uwlit)
• Russian: оолит (ru) m (oolit)

oolite — see oolite

Further reading

• ooid on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Robert L. Bates, Julia A. Jackson (1980) M. Gary, R. McAfee, Jr., and C.L. Wolf, editors, Glossary of Geology, 2nd edition, Falls Church, Va.: American Geological Institute, →ISBN.

Anagrams

• tholoi