Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Marble

Mar′ble (mär′b'l), n. [OE. marbel, marbre, F. marbre, L. marmor, fr. Gr. μάρμαρος, fr. μαρμαίρειν to sparkle, flash. Cf. Marmoreal.] 1. A massive, compact limestone; a variety of calcite, capable of being polished and used for architectural and ornamental purposes. The color varies from white to black, being sometimes yellow, red, and green, and frequently beautifully veined or clouded. The name is also given to other rocks of like use and appearance, as serpentine or verd antique marble, and less properly to polished porphyry, granite, etc.

☞ Breccia marble consists of limestone fragments cemented together. — Ruin marble, when polished, shows forms resembling ruins, due to disseminated iron oxide. — Shell marble contains fossil shells. — Statuary marble is a pure, white, fine-grained kind, including Parian (from Paros) and Carrara marble. If coarsely granular it is called saccharoidal.

2. A thing made of, or resembling, marble, as a work of art, or record, in marble; or, in the plural, a collection of such works; as, the Arundel or Arundelian marbles; the Elgin marbles.

3. A little ball of marble, or of some other hard substance, used as a plaything by children; or, in the plural, a child's game played with marbles.

☞ Marble is also much used in self-explaining compounds; when used figuratively in compounds it commonly means, hard, cold, destitute of compassion or feeling; as, marble-breasted, marble-faced, marble-hearted.

Mar′ble, a. 1. Made of, or resembling, marble; as, a marble mantel; marble paper.

2. Cold; hard; unfeeling; as, a marble breast or heart.

Mar′ble, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Marbled; p. pr. & vb. n. Marbling.] [Cf. F. marbrer. See Marble, n.] To stain or vein like marble; to variegate in color; as, to marble the edges of a book, or the surface of paper.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.