Word.ws English Dictionary

felsic

felsic adjective: enriched in minerals predominantly composed of the lighter elements such as silicon, oxygen, aluminium, sodium, and potassium.

Adjective

felsic (comparative more felsic, superlative most felsic)

  1. Enriched in minerals predominantly composed of the lighter elements such as silicon, oxygen, aluminium, sodium, and potassium.
    • Much of the southern half of the southeastern body is a mafic syenite, slightly more felsic than the shonkinite.1954, J. C. Olson, D. R. Shawe, L. C. Pray, W. N. Sharp, Rare-Earth Mineral Deposits of the Mountain Pass District, San Bernadino County, California, U.S. Geological Survey, Professional Paper 261...
    • Within comagmatic suites, successively younger granitoids are commonly, but not invariably, more felsic, representing progressively lower temperature mineral assemblages.1983, Paul C. Bateman, “A summary of critical relations in the central part of Sierra Nevada batholith, California, U.S.A.”, in J. A. Roddick, editor, Circum-Pacific Plutonic Terranes, Geological...
    Synonyms:
    acidic, sialic, silicic

Noun

felsic (plural felsics)

  1. A rock with such properties.
    • The central part of this nepheline syenite is very white felsics with black mafics in it. The entire area contains many nepheline-bearing dike rocks, but almost all are gray or pink or even red due to the color in the felsics.1953, R. C. Emmons, “Petrogeny of the Syenites and Nepheline Syenites of Central Wisconsin”, in R. C. Emmons, editor, Selected Petrogenic Relationships of Plagioclase, Geological Society of America...
    • There are also calcalkaline felsics that have highly enriched LREE^([light rare-earth element]) patterns with lower overall abundances.1992, T. E. Smith, chapter 1, in K. C. Condie, editor, Proterozoic Crustal Evolution, Elsevier, page 35

Synonyms of felsic

Forms of felsic

Adjective
comparativemore felsic
superlativemost felsic
Noun
pluralfelsics

Origin of felsic

Blend of feldspar + silica, + -ic.

Words formed from felsic

Questions about felsic

What does felsic mean?
Felsic means enriched in minerals predominantly composed of the lighter elements such as silicon, oxygen, aluminium, sodium, and potassium.
What part of speech is felsic?
Felsic can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near felsic in the dictionary

  1. Felpham
  2. felquiste
  3. felquistes
  4. felsenmeer
  5. felsenmeers
  6. felsic
  7. felsics
  8. felsification
  9. felsifications
  10. felsite
  11. felsites

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: felsic (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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