cryptocrystalline
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of cryptocrystalline
First recorded in 1860–65; crypto- + crystalline
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Making Stone Points Points and blades chipped from cryptocrystalline rocks such as chert, flint, and obsidian make the sharpest knives, arrowheads, and spear tips, although efficiently using the latter two requires lots of practice.
From Time Magazine Archive
That is, the metamorphic rocks are characteristically holocrystalline, while igneous rocks are porphyritic, or cryptocrystalline.
From North America by Russell, Israel C. (Cook)
Some concretions are amorphous, e.g. phosphatic nodules; others are cryptocrystalline, e.g. flint and chert; others finely crystalline, e.g. pyrites, sphaerosiderite; others consist of large crystals, e.g. gypsum, barytes, pyrites and marcasite.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 7 "Columbus" to "Condottiere" by Various
The structure of a flint, for example, shows that the material had so little tendency to crystallize that it remained permanently in cryptocrystalline or sub-crystalline state.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 7 "Columbus" to "Condottiere" by Various
H�lleflinta under the microscope is very finely crystalline, or even cryptocrystalline, resembling the felsitic matrix of many acid rocks.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 7 "Gyantse" to "Hallel" by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
