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Glite Dictionary
silcrete

silcrete

1 9.9
A hard rock that forms when sand or soil are glued together by natural silica
  • noun
  • Specialized
: silcreta
  • To craft the stone points, the people at PP5-6 first had to locate and collect a specific type of stone called silcrete.

Examples

  • The archaeologists discovered silcrete among the ancient tools they unearthed at the dig site.

  • Silcrete is a durable material that was commonly used by prehistoric humans to make cutting tools.

  • Researchers studied the silcrete samples to understand its formation process in ancient sediment layers.

Surface Forms

silcrete singular
silcretes plural

Morphology

silcrete = silica (semi-transparent) = silica + crete

The base 'silica' signals a relation to silica, but the combining element '-crete' is a technical morpheme for hardened deposits and may not be familiar to an average B1 learner.

Etymology

Silcrete comes from silica 'the hard part of sand' and concrete 'a hard building mix'. So it means silica that has become like concrete, a very hard rock often used for ancient tools and as a base for roads.