Other forms: stalagmites
A stalagmite is a stone spike rising from a cave floor. A tall stalagmite, stalagmites and stalactites, the stalagmite grew.
The pair is easy to keep straight: stalagmites might reach the ceiling, and stalactites hold tight to it. They grow perhaps a tenth of a millimetre a year, so a large one is tens of thousands of years old. The Greek means a dripping.
1nounstalagmiteA stone spike rising from a cave floor.
“Water dripping from the cave roof has built a tall stalagmite on the floor.”
stalagmite is a rock formation.
From Greek stalagma, a drop, or stalagmos, a dripping — the deposit left by water dripping down.
New Latin
stalagmītēs
English, today
stalagmite
Built from
Borrowed from New Latin stalagmītēs, from grc + στάλαγμα + drop, from und + σταλάσσω. From New Latin stalagmītēs, from Ancient Greek στάλαγμα (“drop”) or σταλαγμός (“dripping”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA