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Detritus   Listen
noun
Detritus  n.  
1.
(Geol.) A mass of substances worn off from solid bodies by attrition, and reduced to small portions; as, diluvial detritus. Note: For large portions, the word débris is used.
2.
Hence: Any fragments separated from the body to which they belonged; any product of disintegration. "The mass of detritus of which modern languages are composed."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Detritus" Quotes from Famous Books



... but each of the three areas has its own marked features. In all the rocks are talcose and show a sort of conglomerate of quartz pebbles, in some cases water-worn and in others angular, bedded in a mixture of quartz and granite detritus. This has in the three areas undergone varying degrees of pressure, and has been upheaved at different angles. In some cases the pressure and heat have been so great that the rock assumes a ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... remained to this incredible age. And age was the impression that he profoundly presented. But it was age that a tough vitality in the man resisted; as though the assault of time wore it down slowly and with almost an imperceptible detritus. The great naked head and the wide Mongolian face were unshrunken; they presented, rather, the aspect of some old child. He was dressed with extreme care, in the very best evening clothes that one could buy ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... that he did so promptly, for, in less than a minute, and without the slightest premonition, the immense bank above them slid with a terrific rumbling noise into the river. The enormous mass of sand and vegetable detritus thus detached could not have been much, if at all, less than half a mile in extent. It came surging and hurling down— trees and roots and rocks and mud intermingling in a chaos of grand confusion, the great cable-like creepers twining like ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... number of parallel broad valleys, or long plains, opening out into the desert. The appearance of these ranges is almost everywhere bare, arid, and forbidding. Above, they present to the eye huge masses of gray rock piled one upon another; below, a slope of detritus, destitute of trees or shrubs, and only occasionally nourishing a dry and scanty herbage. The appearance of the plains is little superior; they are flat and without undulations, composed in general of gravel or hard clay, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... then, with a faith that ought to have moved mountains, she set to work to empty the straw from the mattress she had already vainly explored in all directions. But Cerizet would not allow that extreme measure; he remarked that after the autopsy of a straw mattress such detritus would remain upon the floor as must infallibly give rise to suspicion. But the Cardinal, who thought this caution ridiculous, was determined to, at least, take apart the flock bedstead. The passion of the search ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... great chain, or the lower peaks of the minor one, combine into ever growing streams of pleasant waters which finally unite in the sluggish but impressive Po. Melting snows and torrential rains fill these watercourses with the rich detritus of the hills which renews from year to year the soil it originally created. A genial climate and a grateful soil return to the industrious inhabitants an ample reward for their labors. In the fiercest ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... Dome-like closed trachytic mountains. Actual volcanoes which are formed from craters of elevations or among the detritus of their original structure. Permanent connection of the interior of our earth with the atmosphere. Relation to certain rocks. Influence of the relations of height on the frequency of the eruptions. Heights of the cone of cinders. Characteristics ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt



Words linked to "Detritus" :   material, slack, junk, rubble, trash, debris, dust, rubbish, stuff, scrap



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