/ʃeɪl/
OriginFrom Middle English schale (“shell, husk; scale”), from Old English sċealu (“shell, husk, pod”), from Proto-West Germanic *skalu, from Proto-Germanic *skalō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cut”), from *(s)kel- (“to split, cleave”).
See also West Frisian skaal (“dish”), Dutch schaal (“shell”), schalie (“shale”), German Schale (“husk, pod”); also Lithuanian skalà (“splinter”), Old Church Slavonic скала (skala, “rock, stone”), Polish skała (“rock”), Albanian halë (“fish bone, splinter”), Sanskrit कल (kalá, “small part”); also Hittite [script needed] (iškalla, “to tear apart, slit open”), Lithuanian skélti (“to split”), Ancient Greek σκάλλω (skállō, “to hoe, harrow”). Doublet of scale. See also shell.
- countable, uncountableA shell or husk; a cod or pod.
“the green shales of a bean”
“Mr. Lyell next visited the red and green shales of Cabotville, north of Springfield in Massachusetts, where some of the best Ornithichnites have been procured, chiefly in the green shale.”
- countable, uncountableA fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.
“As on all large green roofs, the soil is not dirt exactly but a gravel-like growing medium of granulated pumice, shales, clays and other minerals.”
“Five years in, ARPA–E’s priorities have shifted, too, for the same reason. The cheap natural gas freed from shale by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) has helped kill off blee”
- To take off the shell or coat of.
Formsshales(plural) · shales(present, singular, third-person) · shaling(participle, present) · shaled(participle, past) · shaled(past)