quartz
noun
Simple meaning
The most abundant mineral on the earth's surface, of chemical composition silicon dioxide, SiO₂.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kwawrtsIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkwɔɹts
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
mineralogy
The most abundant mineral on the earth's surface, of chemical composition silicon dioxide, SiO₂. It occurs in a variety of forms, both crystalline and amorphous. Found in every environment.
A hard glossy mineral consisting of silicon dioxide in crystal form; present in most rocks (especially sandstone and granite); yellow sand is quartz with iron oxide impurities
uncountableslang
Crystal meth: methamphetamine hydrochloride.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The most abundant mineral on the earth's surface, of chemical composition silicon dioxide, SiO₂. It occurs in a variety of forms, both crystalline and amorphous. Found in every environment.
Used this way, quartz is a specialist word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Rich and abundant
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Nearby words
- quartz glass , rarer, so it draws attention
- crystal , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use quartz
- “She wore a lovely necklace with a sparkling pink quartz pendant.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A thin plate or small rod of quartz cut along certain lines and ground so that it can produce an electric signal at a constant frequency.
Colorless glass made of almost pure silica.
A mercury-vapor lamp that is enclosed in a quartz container instead of a glass container.
A stamp mill for stamping quartz.
An oscillator that produces electrical oscillations at a frequency determined by the physical characteristics of a piezoelectric quartz crystal.
A stamp mill for stamping quartz.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: most abundant mineral on the earth's surface
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.