Earth & SkyGreek → English
Stalactite
/stəˈlæktaɪt/noun
A tapering deposit of mineral hanging from a cave roof, built up by dripping water.
The Greek roots
σταλακτός
stalaktós
dripping, oozing
Literally: “dripping one”
Follow a root:σταλακτός1 word
The story of the word
Ole Worm, a Danish physician cataloguing his cabinet of curiosities, put the Latin word stalactites into print in the 1650s. He built it on σταλακτός, the Greek adjective for something that drips. The formation is exact: what hangs there is not dripping water but water that stopped dripping and hardened, one thin layer at a time.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1670s
Same family
stalagmitespeleothem
In a sentence
The torch beam picked out a row of stalactites the size of organ pipes.
Water still beaded on the tip of every stalactite in the chamber.