muscovite1
/ˈmʌskəvʌɪt
/noun [mass noun]
A silver-grey form of mica occurring in many rocks.The intervening host-rock layers are between 2 and 5 cm thick, being composed of biotite, sillimanite, garnet, muscovite, quartz and plagioclase....
- This granulite consists of garnet, biotite, muscovite, quartz, plagioclase and cordierite.
- They collected several pegmatite pockets in which topaz was associated with both clear and smoky quartz, microcline, albite, muscovite, fluorite, and cassiterite.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from obsolete Muscovy glass (in the same sense) + -ite1.
Muscovite2
/ˈmʌskəvʌɪt/noun
1A native or citizen of Moscow: Leon was a Muscovite by birth...
- A native Muscovite adds: ‘It's difficult to say why it's like this in Russia - are things this bad because the men drink or do they drink because things are this bad?’
- He is a Muscovite by birth, the son of a Soviet mathematician economist.
- The people of St Petersburg considered the Muscovites to be a trifle primitive, while the citizens of Moscow regarded St Petersburg society as slightly alien and vaguely suspect.
1.1 archaic A Russian.The outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars changed the fate of the British Muscovites....
- Yet in the decades after World War II, Ukraine was arguably the most productive of the Soviet republics and Kiev was the provincial posting that Muscovites fought for.
- Shown here with his gift of humor displaced by a sense of national loss, he meditates dejectedly on the capture of the Polish border town of Smolensk by the Muscovites in 1514.
adjective
1Relating to Moscow: two Muscovite women Muscovite traditions...
- In his world - the world of a Muscovite professional - this meant that the city's middle class has finally broken through the cocoon of insecurity; it started earning and spending money.
- During the first week of June, Muscovite fans flock to the shores of Lake Saimaa for an annual ballet fiesta that showcases the theater's most acclaimed productions.
- The Muscovite tsars rose to power during Mongol rule not by fighting the Golden Horde, but conspiring against other Russian princes.
1.1 archaic Relating to Russia.
Origin
From modern Latin Muscovita, from Muscovia (see Muscovy).