amazonite
Use Amazonite in a sentence
əBased on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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amazonite (ˈæməzəˌnaɪt) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| Also called: Amazon stone a green variety of microcline used as a gemstone. Formula: KAlSi3O8 | |
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| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
amazonite
a gemstone variety of green microcline (q.v.), a feldspar mineral. Frequently confused with jade, amazonstone varies in colour from yellow-green to blue-green and may also exhibit fine white streaks; it is usually opaque and therefore is cut en cabochon (with a rounded and convex polished surface). Although its name is derived from the Amazon River, no deposits have been found there. Amazonstone has been mined in Minas Gerais, Brazil; Ontario and Quebec, Canada; Baveno, Italy; and the Ural Mountains of Russia. The Pikes Peak district of Colorado, U.S., became the most important source of amazonstone after 1876; when samples were unveiled at the Centennial Exhibition, their impressive purity and size eventually forced competing Russian mineral dealers out of business.
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