English Explanatory Dictionary

shale

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A shell, scale or husk; a cod or pod.
  2. A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.
  3. The shale oil and shale gas segment of the oil and gas industry.
verb
  1. To take off the shell or coat of.

Pronunciation

/ʃeɪl/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shale.wav

Word forms

shale shales shaling shaled

Etymology

From 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.

Synonyms

shell

Related words

gneiss schist slate

Derived words

alum shale bituminous shale black shale clay shale oil shale red shale shale gas shaleionaire shalelike shale oil shale pit shaler shale shaker shaley shaly unshale
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