cascalho means A deposit of pebbles, gravel, and ferruginous sand in which diamonds may be found. It carries an Arena rating of 1337, earned across 33 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, cascalho ranks #46 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #986 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #2,725 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #2,978 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
Why “cascalho” is a great word
CASCALHO — [Noun] A diamondiferous deposit of pebbles, gravel, and ferruginous sand. From Portuguese cascalho ("a chip of stone, gravel"). Unlike "gravel," a generic term for loose rock, or "alluvium," any water-laid sediment, cascalho denotes a specific, hopeful matrix. It is the rust-stained grit sieved under a merciless sun, the coarse bed of a vanished river, the unremarkable earthly husk from which a cold, perfect fire is wrested—a testament that the world's greatest treasures are never found in purity, but only ever embedded in the commonplace.
Etymology
From Portuguese cascalho (“a chip of stone, gravel”).
noun
- A deposit of pebbles, gravel, and ferruginous sand in which diamonds may be found.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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