polverine

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English

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Etymology

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From Italian polverino, from Latin pulvis (dust).

Noun

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polverine (countable and uncountable, plural polverines)

  1. (uncountable) Glassmaker's ashes; a kind of potash or pearlash, brought from the Levant and Syria, used in the manufacture of fine glass.
  2. (countable) A tiny biting insect found in South America.
    • 1946, Kenneth Walker, I talk of dreams: an experiment in autobiography, page 145:
      Mosquitoes and polverines, little midges so small as to be scarcely visible, rose in a cloud from the water and settled on our hands and faces.
    • 1980, David Attenborough, The Zoo Quest Expeditions: Travels in Guyana, Indonesia, and Paraguay, →ISBN:
      The polverines, however, were so small and numerous that even though we massacred fifty with a slap it seemed to make no difference to the hazy black cloud which hung around our heads.
    • 1991, MS Aufdemberge, The Mission Efforts of the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Synod in the Chaco Province of Argentina:
      But all were more tolerable than those polverines.

References

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Italian

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Noun

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polverine f

  1. plural of polverina

Anagrams

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