What does "shale" mean?
Shale: Etym: [G. shale.] (Geol.) A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure. Bituminous shale. See under Bituminous.
Additional senses
- 2.To take off the shell or coat of; to shell. Life, in its upper grades, was bursting its shell, or was shaling off its husk. I. Taylor.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00