pumice

From Anglo-Norman and Old French pomis (“pumice stone”), from Latin pūmex (“pumice stone”). Doublet of pounce.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpʌm.ɪs/

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• Rhymes: -ʌmɪs

pumice (countable and uncountable, plural pumices)

1. A light, porous type of pyroclastic igneous rock, formed during explosive volcanic eruptions when liquid lava is ejected into water or air as a froth containing masses of gas bubbles, which are frozen into the rock as the lava solidifies.
   • 1912, Katherine Mansfield, The Woman at the Store, Oxford World's Classics 2002, page 10:

     The wind blew close to the ground - it rooted among the tussock grass - slithered along the road, so that the white pumice dust swirled in our faces - settled and sifted over us and was like a dry-skin itching for growth on our bodies.

• pumiciform
• pumiceous
• pumicate

pumice (third-person singular simple present pumices, present participle pumicing, simple past and past participle pumiced)

1. (transitive) To abrade or roughen with pumice.

• pumice stone
• pumiceous

pūmice

1. ablative singular of pūmex