whinstone
noun
Forms whinstones
- noun A stone used to crush whin for use as winter feed for cattle.
- noun (quarrying industry) Any hard dark-coloured rock.
Synonyms
Etymology
Possibly corrupted from quern stone, i.e. stone suitable for making querns; or else, from whin + stone.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A provincial name given in England to basaltic rocks, and applied by miners to other kind of dark-colored unstratified rocks which resist the point of the pick.
Etymology [Whin + stone; cf. Scot. quhynstane.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “whinstone”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details