shale

See also: shalë

English

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʃeɪl/
• Rhymes: -eɪl

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Noun

Shale fragments of Marcellus Shale in talus

shale (countable and uncountable, plural shales)

1. A shell or husk; a cod or pod.
   • c. 1610s, Homer (attributed), translated by George Chapman, The Crowne of all Homers Workes: Batrachomyomachia, or the Battaile of Frogs and Mise […], published 1624:

     the green shales of a bean

2. (geology) A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.
   • 2007 March 23, Patricia Leigh Brown, “The Window Box Gets Some Tough Competition”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     As on all large green roofs, the soil is not dirt exactly but a gravel-like growing medium of granulated pumice, shales, clays and other minerals.

Usage notes

Before the mid-19th century, the terms shale, slate and schist were not sharply distinguished. Shales that are subject to heat and pressure alter into slate, then schist and finally to gneiss.

Derived terms

• alum shale
• bituminous shale
• black shale
• oil shale
• shale gas
• shaleionaire
• shale oil
• shaley
• shaly

 

Related terms

• gneiss
• schist
• slate

Translations

shell, husk, cod, pod

• Finnish: kuori (fi)
• Galician: cadorna f, casca (gl) f
• Spanish: cáscara (es), vaina (es)

sedimentary rock

• Bulgarian: шиста f (šista)
• Catalan: esquist (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 頁岩／页岩 (jip⁶ ngaam⁴)

  Mandarin: 頁岩／页岩 (zh) (yèyán)

• Czech: lupek m, jílovitá břidlice
• Esperanto: skisto
• Finnish: savikivi, liuske (fi)
• French: schiste (fr) m
• Galician: rachón m, fraga (gl) f
• Georgian: თიხიანი ფიქალი (tixiani pikali)
• German: Tonschiefer m
• Hungarian: agyagpala (hu), pala (hu)
• Icelandic: leirsteinn m, leirflögur f pl
• Ingrian: savislantsa
• Italian: scisto (it) m
• Japanese: 頁岩 (けつがん, ketsugan), 泥板岩 (でいばんがん, deibangan)
• Korean: 혈암(頁岩) (hyeoram)
• Macedonian: шкри́лец m (škrílec)
• Norman: bliu-pièrre f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: leirskifer (no) m, skifer (no) m

  Nynorsk: leirskifer m, skifer m

• Persian: شیست (fa) (šist)
• Polish: łupek (pl) m
• Portuguese: xisto (pt)
• Russian: сла́нец (ru) m (slánec)
• Serbo-Croatian: škriljac (sh), škriljevac
• Spanish: esquisto (es) m, pizarra (es) f
• Swedish: lerskiffer, skiffer (sv)
• Tagalog: eskuwisto
• Turkish: şeyl (tr), şist (tr)

Verb

shale (third-person singular simple present shales, present participle shaling, simple past and past participle shaled)

1. To take off the shell or coat of.

Synonyms

• shell

Translations

to take off the shell, husk, cod, pod

• Bulgarian: обелвам (bg) (obelvam)
• Finnish: kuoria (fi)
• French: écoquiller (fr), décoquiller (fr), écaler (fr), décortiquer (fr)

Anagrams

• Hales, Heals, Sahel, Saleh, Selah, hales, halse, heals, leash, selah, sheal

Chickasaw

Noun

shale

1. bus