Word.ws English Dictionary

castellite

Syllables: Cas·tel·lite

castellite noun: a clear yellow form of the crystalline mineral titanite or sphene, occurring in very small, thin, tubular crystals.

Noun (1)

castellite (plural castellites)

  1. A clear yellow form of the crystalline mineral titanite or sphene, occurring in very small, thin, tubular crystals.

Noun (2) capitalized: Castellite

Castellite (plural Castellites)

  1. A religious group in western North Carolina during the late 19th century. Mormon missionaries encountered them and found that they were enemies, not converts.
    • Of late years Mormon missionaries from Utah have reaped a rich harvest in this region, and in parts of Swain and Haywood counties a peculiar sect, known as Castellites, has arisen whose exercises seem to be of a highly emotional character, as it is a common remark that every one who joins the...1913, Horace Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders
  2. A resident of Castelle,Texas.
    • Life here was not easy. For the first couple of years, Castellites depended heavily on supplies and support from the people of Fredericksburg, who had problems enough of their own. A round trip to Fredericksburg—about 50 miles—took 4 days.2001, Richard Zelade, Hill Country

Forms of castellite

pluralcastellites
pluralCastellites

Origin of castellite

From Castelli + -ite, from the surname of its discoverer, Herr Bergverwalter Castelli.

Possibly from a very brief 19th-century Mormon settlement in Castell, Texas, which, like all Mormon communities, sent out missionaries. Identifying "Utah" as the source of the Castellite missionaries in the quote below may have been based on the common contemporaneous assumption that all Mormons were based in Utah.

Questions about castellite

What does castellite mean?
Castellite means a clear yellow form of the crystalline mineral titanite or sphene, occurring in very small, thin, tubular crystals.
What part of speech is castellite?
Castellite is a noun.
What is the plural of castellite?
The plural of castellite is castellites.

Words near castellite in the dictionary

  1. castellers
  2. castellet
  3. castellets
  4. Castelletto
  5. castelli
  6. castellite
  7. castellites
  8. Castellnou
  9. castello
  10. castellologist
  11. castellology

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: castellite (page history and authors); Castellite (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “castellite.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/castellite. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.