Word
shale
US/ˈʃeɪɫ/
UK/ʃˈeɪl/
Definitions
01sedimentary rock
n. a soft, dark rock that was formed from mud and can be split into thin, flat pieces.
n. a fine-grained sedimentary rock formed by the compaction of silt and clay-size mineral particles; it is typically fissile, meaning it splits easily along laminations.
“The geologist found fossils of ancient leaves pressed between the layers of shale.”
“The extraction of natural gas from deep shale formations has significantly altered the global energy landscape over the last decade.”
Technical
Usage
Often used as an uncountable noun when referring to the material, but countable when referring to specific geological formations.
Synonyms
02a shell or husk
n. the outer shell or covering of a seed or fruit.
n. the outer covering, husk, or pod of a plant or seed.
“He removed the dry shale from the grain before grinding it.”
“In certain regional dialects, the term shale is still applied to the protective husks of legumes during the harvest season.”
Archaic · Dialect
Teaching tip
This sense is extremely rare in modern English; learners will almost exclusively encounter the geological meaning.
03to remove a shell
v. to take the outer skin or shell off something.
v. to remove the shell, husk, or outer coating from a seed or fruit.
“The workers spent the afternoon shaling the peas for the evening meal.”
“The traditional process involved shaling the nuts by hand before they were laid out to dry in the sun.”
Archaic
Usage
A transitive verb taking a direct object.
Real-World Examples
“Then, new drilling and hydraulic fracturing methods unlocked oil stored in layers of shale .” “A bat fossil found in Messel oil shale in Germany, that is about 47-48m years old.” Etymology
From Middle English schale (“shell, husk; scale”), from Old English sċealu (“shell, husk, pod”), from Proto-West Germanic skalu, from Proto-Germanic skalō, from Proto-Indo-European (s)kelH- (“to split, cut”), from (s)kel- (“to split, cleave”). See also West Frisian skaal (“dish”), Dutch schaal (“shell”), schalie (“shale”), German Schale (“husk, pod”); also Lithuanian skalà (“splinter”), Old Church Slavonic скала (skala, “rock, stone”), Polish skała (“rock”), Albanian halë (“fish bone, splinter”), Sanskrit कल (kalá, “small part”); also Hittite [script needed] (iškalla, “to tear apart, slit open”), Lithuanian skélti (“to split”), Ancient Greek σκάλλω (skállō, “to hoe, harrow”). Doublet of scale. See also shell.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Domain
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/shale