terra alba

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A white earthy substance consisting of burnt gypsum and aluminium silicate (kaolin), or some similar ingredient, such as magnesia. It is sometimes used to adulterate certain foods, spices, candies, paints, etc.

Word forms

terra alba

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin terra (“earth”) + alba (“white”), literally meaning "white earth". Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ters-.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.