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pumice

UK/ˈpʌm.ɪs/US/ˈpʌm.ɪs/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,550 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: pumices

Pumice is a light frothy volcanic rock that floats. A pumice stone, rub with pumice, pumice on the water.

It floats because it is full of gas bubbles frozen in as the lava cooled, and after a big eruption rafts of it drift across whole oceans for years. As a pumice stone it is used to rub hard skin from the feet.

Ambuj Saxena · CC BY 2.0

Definitions of pumice

  1. 1nounpumiceA light frothy volcanic rock that floats.B2+

    “She rubbed the hard skin on her feet with a pumice stone in the bath.”

pumice is a rock.

Where it comes from

Latin pumex names the stone, related to spuma, foam. Pounce, a fine powder, is a doublet.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *(s)poH(y)-

  2. Latin

    pūmex — pumice stone

  3. Old French

    pomis — pumice stone

  4. English, today

    pumice

From Anglo-Norman - and Old French pomis (“pumice stone”), from Latin pūmex (“pumice stone”). a doublet of pounce.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Rocks & Minerals

Practise this word

pumice in the wild

  • Rhyolitic pumice finds use as an abrasive, in concrete, and as a soil amendment.

    Rhyolite

  • Scoria is another vesicular volcanic rock that differs from pumice in having larger vesicles, thicker vesicle walls, and being dark-colored and denser.

    Pumice

  • If pumice from an underwater volcanic eruption reaches the water surface, it can form pumice rafts on the water surface that can be a hazard for ships.

    Pumice

  • The seamount erupted in 1962, probably during March, and produced a large pumice raft that was swept by ocean currents around Antarctica.

    Protector Shoal

  • Some fiamme are formed from flattened hot, relatively low viscosity, high porosity fragments of volcanic glass or pumice.

    Fiamme

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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.

Related words

the pūmex family

pounce

pumice — used about once every 23,598 pages · #13,550 · point at the bar for the others