Library / English Dictionary

SEDIMENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Matter that has been deposited by some natural process

Synonyms:

deposit; sediment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("sediment" is a kind of...):

matter (that which has mass and occupies space)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sediment"):

alluvial deposit; alluvial sediment; alluvion; alluvium (clay or silt or gravel carried by rushing streams and deposited where the stream slows down)

dregs; settlings (sediment that has settled at the bottom of a liquid)

lees (the sediment from fermentation of an alcoholic beverage)

lick; salt lick (a salt deposit that animals regularly lick)

evaporite (the sediment that is left after the evaporation of seawater)

Derivation:

sedimentary (resembling or containing or formed by the accumulation of sediment)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Settle as sediment

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "sediment" is one way to...):

settle; settle down (settle into a position, usually on a surface or ground)

Verb group:

sediment (deposit as a sediment)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Deposit as a sediment

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "sediment" is one way to...):

deposit; fix; posit; situate (put (something somewhere) firmly)

Verb group:

sediment (settle as sediment)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

sedimentation (the phenomenon of sediment or gravel accumulating)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Crystalline calcium carbonate found in ocean sediments, usually derived from continental weathering of carbonate rock.

(Detrital carbonate, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)

C. oceanicum is considered non-pathogenic and has been isolated from marine sediments.

(Clostridium oceanicum, NCI Thesaurus)

C. acetobutylicum is found commonly in soil, lake sediment, well water, and bovine, canine, and human feces.

(Clostridium acetobutylicum, NCI Thesaurus)

Single-celled animals that live near the sediment water interface and have calcium carbonate skeletons.

(Benthic Foraminifera, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)

Continental material transport within a matrix of ice and deposited in marine sediments when the ice matrix melts.

(Ice rafted detritus, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)

Previously it wasn't clear if the dark material was liquid or merely saturated sediment — which at Titan's frigid temperatures would be made of ice, not rock.

(Cassini Finds Flooded Canyons on Titan, NASA)

They collected 2,500 meters (8,202 feet) of sediment cores from layers that record how the geography, volcanism and climate of Zealandia have changed over the last 70 million years.

(Scientists return from expedition to lost continent of Zealandia, National Science Foundation)

The first, called selective preservation, suggests that some molecules of organic carbon may be difficult for microorganisms to break down, so they remain untouched in sediment even after others have decomposed.

(Carbon hides in sediment, keeping oxygen in atmosphere, National Science Foundation)

They retrieved water and sediment samples from a body of water that had been isolated from direct contact with the atmosphere for many thousands of years.

(Methane-eating bacteria in lake deep beneath Antarctic ice sheet may reduce greenhouse gas emissions, National Science Foundation)

The ridges were active 150 million years ago and are now buried by mile-thick layers of sediment.

(New map uncovers thousands of unseen seamounts on ocean floor, NSF)