How to Use obsidian in a Sentence

obsidian

noun
  • The tall flow of black obsidian is in stark contrast to the blue lakes and lush green forest that surrounds it.
    OregonLive.com, 22 Oct. 2017
  • The prized obsidian came from the Hasan Daği volcano, some 80 miles away or the Cappadocia region farther to the east.
    National Geographic, 26 Mar. 2019
  • Drops of scarlet blood on a hard tarmac black as obsidian.
    Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2016
  • Half of the ballroom gleamed ivory, silver and gray while the other half was a exquisite nightmare in ebony, obsidian and onyx.
    Amber Elliott, Houston Chronicle, 19 Feb. 2018
  • None was asked to address the ocean of obsidian surrounding them.
    Michele Parente, sandiegouniontribune.com, 7 Jan. 2018
  • A few of the victims were bound before death, and some have arrowheads of stone and obsidian embedded in their bones.
    Hillary Waterman, Discover Magazine, 10 Mar. 2017
  • Forget about a polite sear; the beef comes out shining like polished obsidian.
    Nick Kindelsperger, chicagotribune.com, 18 Sep. 2019
  • Just pray that no one is carrying around obsidian on Halloween night.
    Rosemary Donahue, Allure, 2 Sep. 2017
  • His efforts have already turned up ancient pottery shards and chunks of obsidian.
    Sarah Medford, WSJ, 15 Jan. 2020
  • Afterwards, the early humans living in the area traded for sharp, strong obsidian and made delicate tools and spear heads.
    NBC News, 15 Mar. 2018
  • The flow was the final stage of a bigger eruption, formed as magma containing little gas made its way to the surface and cooled, creating obsidian.
    OregonLive.com, 22 Oct. 2017
  • Fensterstock’s obsidian-encrusted piece speaks to both the wonder and the folly of human efforts to reckon our place in the cosmos.
    Ryan P. Smith, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Nov. 2020
  • Known as obsidian in the real world, dragonglass kills white walkers and also creates them if stabbed into a human heart by the Children of the Forest.
    Chris Barton, latimes.com, 15 July 2017
  • The significance of dragonglass (obsidian) this season, along with Gendry's skill as a smith highlights the importance of Davos' fake name for him.
    Megan McCluskey, Time, 15 Aug. 2017
  • Blades chipped from cryptocrystalline, rocks such as chert and obsidian, are extremely sharp.
    Keith McCafferty, Field & Stream, 24 Apr. 2020
  • For mysterious reasons, one looks like obsidian, giving a town that grew up around it its name: Black Spire Outpost.
    Wired, 18 Nov. 2019
  • Blegen is not yet convinced that the obsidian at Olorgesailie is evidence of trade networks.
    Michael Price, Science | AAAS, 21 Oct. 2020
  • Early humans sourced black obsidian for projectile points from at least 50 miles away.
    Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Oct. 2020
  • But none seems better equipped to manage summer's onslaught than Carricante, grown mostly on the eastern slopes of Mt. Etna, facing the sea, where the soils are studded with obsidian.
    Patrick Comiskey, latimes.com, 15 May 2018
  • The International Human Rights lawyer’s mane is a rich shade of volcanic obsidian, or a bar of Ghirardelli chocolate.
    Liana Satenstein, Vogue, 30 Apr. 2019
  • The history of local mining—for obsidian, iron, copper, silver, coal—also goes back thousands of years.
    Kyre Chenven, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 Oct. 2018
  • The striking ebony hue feels at once ancient and modern: Here is the enveloping matte darkness of Anish Kapoor’s Vantablack paint and the glittering primordial obsidian of lava rock.
    Amanda Fortini, New York Times, 19 Sep. 2017
  • As Samwell Tarly discovers in his research at the Citadel, Dragonstone is a volcanic island which contains large amounts of dragonglass (obsidian, for all you modern-day folks).
    Chanel Vargas, Harper's BAZAAR, 17 July 2017
  • But Brooks says the presence of obsidian also means that the inhabitants of BOK-2 were probably trading with people closer to the obsidian deposits, not just walking for days to pick up some rocks and then walk home again.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 18 Mar. 2018
  • Other artifacts unearthed in the village, from Egyptian shells to Turkish obsidian to Mesopotamian pottery, further testify to its thriving exchange networks.
    Isis Davis-Marks, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 June 2021
  • The toolmakers were highly selective about their raw materials, importing obsidian from up to 90 kilometers away.
    Ann Gibbons, Science | AAAS, 15 Mar. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'obsidian.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: