n.
Any of various medium-grained to coarse-grained metamorphic rocks composed of laminated, often flaky parallel layers of chiefly micaceous minerals.
[French schiste, from Latin (lapis) schistos, fissile (stone), a kind of iron ore, from Greek skhistos, split, divisible, from skhizein, to split.]
schistose schis'tose' (shĭs'tōs') or schis'tous (-təs) adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
