Word.ws English Dictionary

greywacke

/ˈɡɹeɪ.wæk//ˈɡɹeɪ.wak.ə/

greywacke noun: a hard dark sandstone with poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments in a compact, clay-fine matrix.

Noun

greywacke (countable and uncountable, plural greywackes)

  1. A hard dark sandstone with poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments in a compact, clay-fine matrix.
    • Endless bleak, rounded hills composed of shales and ribs of tough ‘greywackes’ make up the Southern Uplands – all of such rocks were originally deposited under marine conditions.2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 177

Forms of greywacke

pluralgreywackes
alternative formgraywacke

Origin of greywacke

Anglicised form of grauwacke.

Words formed from greywacke

Questions about greywacke

What does greywacke mean?
Greywacke means a hard dark sandstone with poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments in a compact, clay-fine matrix.
What part of speech is greywacke?
Greywacke is a noun.
How do you pronounce greywacke?
Greywacke is pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪ.wak.ə/ (UK).
What is the plural of greywacke?
The plural of greywacke is greywackes.

Words near greywacke in the dictionary

  1. greytail
  2. greytails
  3. Greytak
  4. Greytaks
  5. Greytown
  6. greywacke
  7. greywackes
  8. greyware
  9. greywater
  10. greywaters
  11. greywether

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: greywacke (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-greywacke.wav.

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