| 释义 |
ˈrotten-stone
Also rottenstone.
[f. rotten a. + stone n.]
A decomposed siliceous limestone chiefly used as a powder for polishing metals.
1677Plot Oxfordsh. 66 Nothing does brighten Copper so well, as a sort of stuff they call rotten stone. 1731Fielding Grub St. Op. ii. iv, Your bills for tutty and rotten-stone, when you used nothing but poor whiting. 1777G. Forster Voy. round World II. 355 A sort of tripoly, which is called rotten-stone by some miners. 1823W. Phillips Min. (ed. 3) 50 Rottenstone..is dirty grey, or reddish brown, passing into black: it is dull, earthy, soft, meagre to the touch, and fetid when rubbed or scraped. 1862Ansted Channel Isl. i. vi. 127 The interstices of the rock are generally filled with a red friable stone, called rotten-stone. 1876A. H. Green Phys. Geol. ii. §6. 73 When the calcareous part of such rocks has been dissolved out by the action of water a sort of siliceous skeleton is left called Rottenstone.
attrib.1807Vancouver Agric. Devon (1813) 57 A decomposition of the shaley rotten-stone rock. 1867J. Hogg Microsc. i. iii. 159 The finest tripoli or rotten-stone powder.
Hence ˈrotten-stone v., to polish with rottenstone (Cent. Dict.). |