Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Lava
La′va
(lä′vȧ; 277)
, Noun.
[It.
lava
lava, orig. in Naples, a torrent of rain overflowing the streets, fr. It. & L. lavare
to wash. See Lave
.] The melted rock ejected by a volcano from its top or fissured sides. It flows out in streams sometimes miles in length. It also issues from fissures in the earth’s surface, and forms beds covering many square miles, as in the Northwestern United States.
☞ Lavas are classed, according to their structure, as scoriaceous or cellular, glassy, stony, etc., and according to the material of which they consist, as doleritic, trachytic, etc.
Lava millstone
, a hard and coarse basaltic millstone from the neighborhood of the Rhine.
– Lava ware
, a kind of cheap pottery made of iron slag cast into tiles, urns, table tops, etc., resembling lava in appearance.
Webster 1828 Edition
Lava
L'AVA
,Noun.
1.
A mass or stream of melted minerals or stony matter which bursts or is thrown from the mouth or sides of a volcano, and is sometimes ejected in such quantities as to overwhelm cities. Catana, at the foot of Etna, has often been destroyed by it, and in 1783, a vast tract of land in Iceland was overspread by an eruption of lava from mount Hecla.2.
The same matter when cool and hardened.