marmoreal
1
9.9
- adjective
- /mɑrˈmɔrɪəl/
- Literature
- Her skin was so smooth and pale that it seemed marmoreal in its perfection.
Examples
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The old building featured marmoreal columns that added to its grandeur.
-
Not to mention the marmoreal Dirdirman and the nomad lad.
Fiction book (1993) -
Feuilletonist was by far the best, with marmoreal and flocculent being runners-up.
Blog text (22) -
When the guard raised the bar, I'd hoofed it like a maniac up and down stairways, through the marmoreal labyrinth, finally into the chapel itself.
Fiction book (1995) -
In 1906, the artist passed from the wan, Italianate nudes of his Rose period to some bloated, marmoreal, but still classicized figures.
Academic text (1994) -
The statue had a beautiful, marmoreal finish that gleamed in the sunlight.
Synonyms
7
4.4
Having streaks and veins of another color, like marble or fat in meat
1
6.5
Having streaks or swirls of color like real marble
1
9.5
Having a surface like marble with light and dark lines
1
7.0
Having a smooth surface with streaks like marble
Looks and feels like marble
How Marble-Like
Surface Forms
Morphology
marmoreal = marble (semi-transparent) = marmor + eal
The meaning 'like marble' is recoverable from 'marble' + the adjectival '-eal', but the word shows a Latinized form ('marmor-') and the suffix '-eal' is less familiar to learners, so the relation is not fully transparent.
Etymology
The word marmoreal comes from the Latin root marmor, which means 'marble'. Think of a smooth, pale statue or a marble stone to remember that marmoreal means 'like marble', or smooth, hard, and statue-like.