Quartzarenite

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A hard sedimentary rock made almost entirely of quartz grains that have been cemented together over long periods of time
2. A sandstone in which quartz makes up the vast majority of the mineral grains, giving the rock its pale, durable character
3. A type of sandstone whose grains are overwhelmingly quartz, bonded by silica or other cements into a dense sedimentary stone

Etymology: Quartzarenite is a geological term for a sandstone composed almost entirely of quartz grains, and its name is a compound of two parts. "Quartz" comes from German "Quarz," a word of Slavic origin that entered the modern European languages through German mining vocabulary, while "arenite" is a combining form built from Latin "arena," meaning sand, with the suffix "-ite" used in rock names. Joined together, the name describes a rock whose defining feature is its sand made of quartz. The first half was the older, more widely known word. The second half is a scientific coinage: rock-classification terms ending in "-arenite" were devised by geologists to describe sandstones by their composition, so "quartz arenite" literally means "quartz sand-rock." The solid, one-word spelling "quartzarenite" is simply an alternative form of the same term, with the two elements run together.