clastic

adjective

clas·​tic ˈkla-stik 

: made up of fragments of preexisting rocks

a clastic sediment

clastic noun

Examples of clastic in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

However, these dikes also extend as sills in shallow angles out from the Contention fault along fold noses in the Bisbee clastic sediments so the full range of mineralization dips vary from 20 to 80 degrees. —Sacramento Bee, 24 June 2024

The tan-colored clastic rocks in these photos are the pyroclastic-flow deposits emplaced during the climactic explosive eruptions at the end of the Ellittico stage of Mount Etna, about 15,000 years ago. —Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 20 Nov. 2019

Badlands National Park — July 14–16 Put South Dakota on your travel bucket list and pay a visit to Badlands National Park, which protects fossil beds and mysterious geologic formations like clastic dikes and sod tables. —Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 June 2023

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French clastique, from Greek klastós "broken in pieces" + French -ique -ic entry 1; klastós, verbal adjective (with -s- perhaps imported from the aorist) of kláō, klân "to break off, break in two or in pieces," going back to *klai̯e/o or *klasi̯e/o, present formation based on an Indo-European root aorist *kl̥h₂- from a verbal base *kelh₁- "hit, strike" seen also in Latin percellere "to strike down, overpower, afflict with disaster" (from *kel-n-h₂-e/o-); in Old Church Slavic kolǫ, klati "to kill, slaughter," Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian klȁti "to slaughter," Russian kolotʼ "to prick, stab," Lithuanian kalù, kálti "to drive in, as with a hammer" (Balto-Slavic from an original reduplicated stem *ke-kolh₂-?)

Note: The term clastique was introduced by the French geologist and zoologist Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) no later than 1814. It appears in his article "Notice pour servir à l'histoire géognostique de cette partie du département de la Manche qu'on nomme le Cotentin," Journal des Mines, trente-cinquième volume, No. 206, fevrier 1814, p. 135. — The etymology above essentially follows Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben and G. Meiser, Veni, Vidi, Vici: Die Vorgeschichte des lateinischen Perfektsystems (Munich, 2003), p. 187; the authors point to the participle apoklā́s "breaking off," used by Anacreon, as evidence of the original aorist stem in Greek. R. Beekes (Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009) disagreed fundamentally ("It is unclear how we can derive any of the above forms [of kláō] from a root *kelh₂"). P. Schrijver (The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Latin, Rodopi, 1991, pp. 173-74) suggests that the aorist klássai might presuppose *kl̥d-s-. The Greek agricultural terms klṓn "branch, sprig" (see clone entry 1) and klêma "cut vine branch, branch on a growing plant" (see clematis) are usually treated as derivatives of kláō, klân, as well as kládos "branch, spring, frond" (see clado-, holt). The etymon is also traditionally implicated in two Latin nouns, clādēs "calamity, disaster, defeat" (which Schrijver, op.cit., sees as a compound *kl̥h₂-d^heh₂- parallel to *ḱred-d^heh₂- "believe"—see creed) and calamitās "disaster, misfortune" (see calamity).

First Known Use

1877, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

clastic

adjective

clas·​tic ˈklas-tik 

: capable of being taken apart

—used of anatomical models made of detachable pieces