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Mineral   /mˈɪnərəl/  /mˈɪnrəl/   Listen
noun
Mineral  n.  
1.
An inorganic species or substance occurring in nature, having a definite chemical composition and usually a distinct crystalline form. Rocks, except certain glassy igneous forms, are either simple minerals or aggregates of minerals.
2.
A mine. (Obs.)
3.
Anything which is neither animal nor vegetable, as in the most general classification of things into three kingdoms (animal, vegetable, and mineral).



adjective
Mineral  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to minerals; consisting of a mineral or of minerals; as, a mineral substance.
2.
Impregnated with minerals; as, mineral waters.
Mineral acids (Chem.), inorganic acids, as sulphuric, nitric, phosphoric, hydrochloric, acids, etc., as distinguished from the organic acids.
Mineral blue, the name usually given to azurite, when reduced to an impalpable powder for coloring purposes.
Mineral candle, a candle made of paraffin.
Mineral caoutchouc, an elastic mineral pitch, a variety of bitumen, resembling caoutchouc in elasticity and softness. See Caoutchouc, and Elaterite.
Mineral chameleon (Chem.) See Chameleon mineral, under Chameleon.
Mineral charcoal. See under Charcoal.
Mineral cotton. See Mineral wool (below).
Mineral green, a green carbonate of copper; malachite.
Mineral kingdom (Nat. Sci.), that one of the three grand divisions of nature which embraces all inorganic objects, as distinguished from plants or animals.
Mineral oil. See Naphtha, and Petroleum.
Mineral paint, a pigment made chiefly of some natural mineral substance, as red or yellow iron ocher.
Mineral patch. See Bitumen, and Asphalt.
Mineral right, the right of taking minerals from land.
Mineral salt (Chem.), a salt of a mineral acid.
Mineral tallow, a familiar name for hatchettite, from its fatty or spermaceti-like appearance.
Mineral water. See under Water.
Mineral wax. See Ozocerite.
Mineral wool, a fibrous wool-like material, made by blowing a powerful jet of air or steam through melted slag. It is a poor conductor of heat.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mineral" Quotes from Famous Books



... outline the land-grant policy is not hard to defend. The difficulties came with execution. We know that in actual operation the policy meant reckless speculation and dishonest finance. We know that no distinction in favor of the public was made between ordinary farm lands, forest lands, mineral lands, and power sites. We know that the beneficiaries of land grants were permitted to exchange ordinary lands for lands of exceptional value without any adequate quid pro quo; and we know that there were no adequate ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss

... It was at least possible that the murderer might have been warned of his danger if he remained in England, and that he might have contemplated directing his flight to a distant country, which would not only offer a safe refuge, but also hold out (in its mineral treasures) a hope of gain. Assuming that these circumstances had really happened, it was in Lord Harry's character to make sure of his revenge, by embarking in the steamship by which the assassin of Arthur ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... WOODPECKER, (Dryobates villosus), a very close relation of the preceding species, is also small, and his food supply is as follows: insects, 68 per cent, vegetable matter 31, mineral 1. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... of the firm of Cornille and Jenard, who held in the eighteenth century the mineral concession of Joiselle, which was joined in 1760 to two neighbouring concessions, those of Comte de Cougny and of Baron Desrumaux, in order to form the Company of the ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... pitch is called bitumen and the verb is linere, "to daub, besmear, etc." Next in chronological order comes the mother of Moses, who "took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch" (Exodus, ii. 3), bitumine ac pice in the Vulgate. Bitumen, or mineral pitch, was regularly applied to this purpose, even by Elizabethan seamen. Failing this, anything sticky and unctuous was used, e.g., clay or lime. Lime now means usually calcium oxide, but its original sense ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley


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