Word.ws English Dictionary

sial

sial noun: the rocks rich in silicon and aluminum that form the upper layer of the earth's crust, which lies beneath all continental landmasses. Also the alternative form of sia.

Noun (1)

sial (uncountable)

  1. The rocks rich in silicon and aluminum that form the upper layer of the earth's crust, which lies beneath all continental landmasses.

Noun (2) capitalized: SiAl

SiAl (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of sial.

Noun (3) capitalized: Sial

Sial (plural Sials)

  1. a clan in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent.

Also used as

sial is also the alternative form of sia.

Forms of sial

alternative formSiAl
alternative formsal
pluralSials

Origin of sial

Coined by Eduard Suess in 1909, in Das Antlitz der Erde, as a blend of translingual Si (silicon) + Al (aluminum).

Borrowed from Malay sial.

Words formed from sial

Questions about sial

What does sial mean?
Sial means the rocks rich in silicon and aluminum that form the upper layer of the earth's crust, which lies beneath all continental landmasses.
What part of speech is sial?
Sial is a noun.
What is the plural of sial?
The plural of sial is Sials.

Words near sial in the dictionary

  1. SIADH
  2. siafu
  3. siafus
  4. siah
  5. siah lah
  6. sial
  7. sial ah
  8. sial lah
  9. siala
  10. sialadenitis
  11. sialadenoncus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sial (page history and authors); SiAl (page history and authors); Sial (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.

Last updated:

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