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Webster 1913 Edition
Pumice
Pum′ice
,Noun.
(Min.)
A very light porous volcanic scoria, usually of a gray color, the pores of which are capillary and parallel, giving it a fibrous structure. It is supposed to be produced by the disengagement of watery vapor without liquid or plastic lava. It is much used, esp. in the form of powder, for smoothing and polishing. Called also
pumice stone
. Webster 1828 Edition
Pumice
PUM'ICE
,Noun.
A substance frequently ejected from volcanoes, of various colors, gray, white, reddish brown or black; hard, rough and porous; specifically lighter than water, and resembling the slag produced in an iron furnace. It consists of parallel fibers, and is supposed to be asbestos decomposed by the action of fire.
Pumice is of three kinds, glassy, common, and porphyritic.
Definition 2024
pumice
pumice
English
Noun
pumice (uncountable)
- A light, porous type of pyroclastic igneous rock, formed during explosive volcanic eruptions when liquid lava is ejected into the air as a froth containing masses of gas bubbles. As the lava solidifies, the bubbles are frozen into the rock.
- 1912, Katherine Mansfield, The Woman at the Store, Oxford World's Classics 2002, page 10
- The wind blew close to the ground - it rooted among the tussock grass - slithered along the road, so that the white pumice dust swirled in our faces - settled and sifted over us and was like a dry-skin itching for growth on our bodies.
- 1912, Katherine Mansfield, The Woman at the Store, Oxford World's Classics 2002, page 10
Related terms
Derived terms
Terms derived from pumice
Translations
pumice
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Verb
pumice (third-person singular simple present pumices, present participle pumicing, simple past and past participle pumiced)