Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

obsidian

UK/ˌɒbˈsɪd.i.ən/US/əbˈsɪd.i.ən/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,503 of 15,258leans written

Obsidian is black volcanic glass that breaks to a razor edge. A blade of obsidian, polished obsidian, obsidian flakes.

It forms when lava cools too fast to crystallise, and a fractured edge can be sharper than surgical steel. It was traded across enormous distances in the ancient world, and the source of a given piece can be identified chemically.

Ji-Elle It feels nice and warm It feels like a love storm · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of obsidian

  1. 1nounobsidianBlack volcanic glass that breaks to a razor edge.B2+

    “Ancient hunters chipped obsidian into knives sharper than any steel blade.”

obsidian is a rock.

Where it comes from

Latin obsidianus is named, according to Pliny, after a Roman called Obsidius said to have found the stone.

  1. Latin

    obsidianus

  2. English, today

    obsidian

From Latin obsidianus; named after Obsidius, who was, according to Pliny, the Roman who discovered the stone in Aethiopia.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Rocks & Minerals

Practise this word

obsidian in the wild

  • Produced from felsic lava, obsidian is rich in the lighter elements such as silicon, oxygen, aluminium, sodium, and potassium.

    Obsidian

  • When an unworked nodule of obsidian is initially fractured, there is typically less than 1% water present.

    Obsidian hydration dating

  • Primitive knives have been made from bronze, copper, brass, iron, obsidian, and flint.

    Knife making

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.