obsidian means black. It carries an Arena rating of 1395, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, obsidian ranks #225 of 42,749 for Qualifying, #382 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #1,525 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,273 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
obsidian is pronounced /ˌɒbˈsɪd.i.ən/.
Why “obsidian” is a great word
A hard, dark, glassy volcanic rock formed from rapidly cooled lava, or the deep, absolute black that resembles it. From the Latin obsidianus, a misprint for Obsianus, meaning '(stone) of Obsius', named after Obsius, the Roman who, according to Pliny, discovered it in Ethiopia; first recorded in English use c. 1650. Unlike basalt, which is dark and fine-grained but crystalline, or onyx, a banded mineral gemstone, obsidian is a uniform, vitreous glass. It is the knife-edge of a flaked blade that never dulls, the mirror pool in a moonless cave, the frozen spill of a starless night—a substance born of fire’s sudden arrest, holding within its perfect darkness the memory of both violence and stillness.
Etymology
From Latin obsidianus; named after Obsidius, who was, according to Pliny, the Roman who discovered the stone in Aethiopia.
adj
- Black.e.g.“Looks like a yellow biscuit of a buttery cue ball moon / Rolling maverick across an obsidian sky” — 1975, “Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)”, in Nighthawks at the Diner, performed by Tom Waits:
noun
- A type of naturally occurring black glass produced by volcanoes.
- A slightly bluish black, the color of obsidian glass.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- pitchstone 64% match — A natural glass, rich in microscopic crystallites, formed by the rapid cooling of lava or magma. vs obsidian →
- limburgite 59% match — A dark volcanic rock resembling basalt and consisting essentially of olivine and augite with a brownish glassy groundmass. vs obsidian →
- ijolite 57% match — A rare igneous rock consisting essentially of nepheline and augite. vs obsidian →
- basalt 57% match — A hard mafic igneous rock of varied mineral content; volcanic in origin, which makes up much of the Earth's oceanic crust. vs obsidian →
- volcanite 55% match — A volcanic rock vs obsidian →
- augite 55% match — A variety of pyroxene, usually of a black or dark green color, occurring in igneous rocks, such as basalt. vs obsidian →
- basaltoid 55% match — Formed like basalt; basaltiform. vs obsidian →
- andesite 54% match — Any of a class of fine-grained intermediate igneous rock, of volcanic origin, containing mostly plagioclase feldspar. vs obsidian →