greystonegraystonen.
/ˈɡreɪstəʊn/, U.S. /ˈɡreɪˌstoʊn/ (a) A building stone of a grey colour. (b) Geology. A grey volcanic rock composed of feldspar (sometimes replaced by leucite or melilite) and augite or hornblende (now chiefly historical).
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the world > the earth > structure of the earth > constituent materials > rock > igneous rock > [noun] > volcanic rocks > other volcanics
tarras1612
greystone1781
trass1794
rhyolite1861
nephelinite1863
metavolcanic1942
1781 S. Neville Diary 2 Nov. (1950) xii. 282 Woodstock is entirely built of the whitish greystone.., which they some times cut into the form of bricks.
1790 Gentleman's Mag. Jan. 21/1 The strata on the North side sunk below their first stations on the bursting forth of the lava, and..the stratum of grey-stone was afterwards formed from materials on the surface.
1815 W. Phillips Outl. Mineral. & Geol. (1818) 151 Greystone according to Werner, is a mixture of white felspar and blackish hornblende.
1830 C. Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 396 But lavas of composition precisely intermediate occur, and from their colour have been called graystones.
1878 J. H. Beadle Western Wilds 522 A very good gray-stone stucco front..could be had for three hundred dollars.
1912 Summary Rep. 1911 (Geol. Surv. Branch, Dept. Mines, Canada) 277 There appears to be a complete gradation from blocks which are undoubtedly greenstone or greystone of the Abitibi group to ‘schlieren’ of hornblende granite.
1971 S. Howatch Penmarric (1972) i. i. 12 The gardens of the greystone cottages were filled with flowers.
2009 K. T. Grant & G. B. Estes Darwin in Galápagos vii. 196 Darwin discovered that the lava, like the greystone boulders at the beach, glistened with crystals of green olivine.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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