sediment
/ˈsɛdɪm(ə)nt
/noun [mass noun]
1Matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid; dregs: the ice freezes the wine and sediment at the base of the cork...
- Ideally, red and fortified wines should stand upright for about a week before the event to adjust slowly to the increased temperature and to enable any sediment to settle at the bottom of the bottle.
- There was a lot of sediment at the bottom of the glass, but the wine waiter told us this was a sign of a good wine.
- The sediment will settle in a thick layer at the bottom.
Synonyms
dregs, lees, deposit, grounds, settlings, residue, remains, accumulation, silt, sludge, alluvium
technical precipitate, sublimate, residuum
rare draff, grouts
1.1 Geology Particulate matter that is carried by water or wind and deposited on the surface of the land or the seabed, and may in time become consolidated into rock: there is a huge concentration of sediment in deltas [count noun]: it takes hundreds of thousands of years to turn the sediments into carbonate rock...
- Areas of overlying sandy sediments were removed to expose the fossiliferous clay.
- The generally immature nature of the palaeosols indicates that most vegetation colonized newly deposited fluvial sediments.
- The proportion of coarse sediment deposited in the plot drains increased with larger storms.
verb [no object]
1Settle as sediment: the erythrocytes were allowed to sediment within the syringe...
- Another method was to allow the powder to sediment out of a viscous solution of gum arabic, leaving only the very finest particles in suspension.
- The solution was allowed to sediment for 24 h and the particles left in suspension were drawn off with a syringe and used for perfusions.
- Throughout the two protocols described below, cells were allowed to sediment between each step.
1.1(Of a liquid) deposit a sediment: heparinated blood was allowed to sediment at room temperature
1.2 [with object] Deposit (something) as a sediment: the DNA was sedimented by centrifugation (as adjective sedimented) sedimented waste...
- Such nuclear suspension was sedimented by gentle centrifugation, the enzyme solution was decanted, and the nuclear pellet was resuspended in 1 x PBS buffer.
- For the routine measurements of Chl concentration, the cells were sedimented by centrifugation and extracted with 100% methanol.
- Cellular components were sedimented by centrifugation at 4 [degrees] C, 500 xg for 10 min.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from French sédiment or Latin sedimentum 'settling', from sedere 'sit'.