Other forms: granites
Granite is a very hard speckled rock used for kerbs and worktops. A granite worktop, granite kerbs, hard as granite.
The speckles are separate crystals — quartz, feldspar and mica — grown large because the rock cooled slowly deep underground, and grain size is how a geologist reads cooling speed. It is faintly radioactive, which is why parts of Cornwall test high for radon.
1noungraniteA very hard speckled rock.
“The old bank was built of grey granite that still looks new.”
granite is a rock.
Italian granito means grained, from grano, a grain, from Latin granum. The name is from the visible crystals.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵerh₂-
Latin
grānum — grain
Italian
granito — granite
French
granit — granite
English, today
granite
Built from
From French granit (“granite”), from Italian granito (“granite”), from granire (“to granulate”), from grano (“grain”), from Latin grānum (“grain”). Compare granita.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA