Other forms: basalts
Basalt is a dark heavy rock formed from cooled lava. A basalt column, basalt cliffs, black basalt.
It is the commonest rock on the surface of the Earth, since the whole ocean floor is made of it. When a thick flow cools slowly it cracks into hexagonal columns, which is what the Giant's Causeway is and why it looks built.
1nounbasaltA dark heavy rock formed from cooled lava.
“The black sand on the beach comes from worn-down basalt.”
basalt is a rock.
Latin basaltes is a misspelling of basanites, from a Greek word for a hard dark stone, itself from Egyptian.
Latin
basaltes
English, today
basalt
Built from
From Latin basaltes, a misspelling of Latin basanites, from Ancient Greek βασανίτης, from βάσανος (“touchstone”), from egy bḫn (“a hard stone”), b-x:n-O39
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA