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dust
has definitions from the field of geology
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[ noun ] (geology) fine powdery material such as dry earth or pollen that can be blown about in the air
Examples "the furniture was covered with dust" Used in print (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Shape of Death: life, death and...)From this earth , then , while it was still virgin God took dust and fashioned the man , the beginning of humanity '' . (Howard Nemerov, "Themes and Methods: The Early...)Thus , on the highroad , a troop of soldiers `` marched in their own dust and sang '' , while on the footpath one man walks alone . (Howard Fast, April Morning....)He came spurring and whooping down the road , his horse kicking_up clouds of dust , shouting : Half crazed by the weight dragging , the dust , and the heat , the horse leaped our wall , dashing out the rider 's brains against it , and leaving him lying there among us - while the horse crashed away through the brush . No drummers here , no pipers , and the red_coats were covered with a fine film of dust . Related terms |
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[ noun ] the remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up
Used in print (J. F. Vedder, "Micrometeorites", in Francis S. J...)The Poynting-Robertson effect ( Robertson , 1937 ; Wyatt and Whipple , 1950 ) , which is a retardation of the orbital motion of particles by the relativistic aberration of the repulsive_force of the impinging solar_radiation , causes the dust to spiral into the sun in times much shorter than the age of the Earth . Further , the corpuscular_radiation , i.e. , the solar_wind protons , must sputter away the surface atoms of the dust and cause a slow diminution in size , with a resultant increase in both the Poynting-Robertson effect and the ratio of the repulsive_force to the gravitational_force . Also , planetary gravitational_attraction increases the dust concentration near the plane of the ecliptic as the sun is approached . At one astronomical_unit from the sun ( the Earth 's distance ) the dust orbits are probably nearly circular . It is also possible that some of the dust in the vicinity of the Earth originated from meteoritic impacts upon the moon . |
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[ verb ] remove the dust from, as of furniture
Used in print (Arthur Miller, "The Prophecy," in The Best...)Now she could let out the three parakeets without_fear they would be stepped_on or that Stowey would let them out one of the doors ; she could dust the plants , then break_off suddenly and pick_up an old novel and read from the middle on ; improvise cha-chas on the harp ; and finally , the best part of all , simply sit at the plank table in the kitchen with a bottle of wine and the newspapers , reading the ads as_well_as the news , registering nothing on her mind but letting her soul suspend itself above all wishing and desire . |
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[ verb ] rub the dust over a surface so as to blur the outlines of a shape
Examples "The artist dusted the charcoal drawing down to a faint image" Used in print (Norman Kent, "The Watercolor Art of Roy M. Mason"...)When this linear draft is completed , I dust it down to a faint image . |
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[ verb ] cover with a light dusting of a substance
Examples "dust the bread with flour" Related terms |
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[ noun ] free microscopic particles of solid material
Examples "astronomers say that the empty space between planets actually contains measurable amounts of dust" Related terms |
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