Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

polverine

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Syllables: polver-ine
IPA

14

Scrabble Score

9

Letters

2

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Glassmaker's ashes; a kind of potash or pearlash, brought from the Levant and Syria, used in the manufacture of fine glass.

Uncountable

noun

A tiny biting insect found in South America.

Countable

Example Sentences

"Mosquitoes and polverines, little midges so small as to be scarcely visible, rose in a cloud from the water and settled on our hands and faces."
"The polverines, however, were so small and numerous that even though we massacred fifty with a slap it seemed to make no difference to the hazy black cloud which hung around our heads."
"But all were more tolerable than those polverines."

Etymology

From Italian polverino, from Latin pulvis (“dust”). Doublet of pulvinus.

Origin

Source language: Italian

Word Breakdown

Root: polverino, pulvis

Usage

Inflected Forms

polverines (plural)

Questions

What does polverine mean?: Glassmaker's ashes; a kind of potash or pearlash, brought from the Levant and Syria, used in the manufacture of fine glass.
Where does polverine come from?: It is traced to Italian.

How to pronounce polverine

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