shale

Meaning

Noun

1. A shell or husk; a cod or pod.
2. A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.

Verb

To take off the shell or coat of.

Concepts

shale

slate

schist

schistous clay

silt rock

cleaving stone

shale rock

shiver

torbanite

clay stone

cowl

moot

pin

spool

mesh gauge

mesh bar

argillaceous rock

claystone

clay slate

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ʃeɪl/

Etymology

From Middle English schale (“shell, husk; scale”), from Old English sċealu (“shell, husk, pod”), from Proto-Germanic *skalō (compare West Frisian skaal (“dish”), Dutch schaal (“shell”), schalie (“shale”), German Schale (“husk, pod”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cut”) (compare Lithuanian skalà (“splinter”), Old Church Slavonic скала (skala, “rock, stone”), Polish skała (“rock”), Albanian halë (“fish bone, splinter”), Sanskrit कल (kalá, “small part”)), from *(s)kel- (“to split, cleave”) (compare Hittite [script needed] (iškalla, “to tear apart, slit open”), Lithuanian skélti (“to split”), Ancient Greek σκάλλω (skállō, “to hoe, harrow”)). Doublet of scale. See also shell.