gneiss

noun

ˈnīs 

: a foliated metamorphic rock corresponding in composition to a feldspathic plutonic rock (such as granite)

gneissic

ˈnī-sik 

adjective

gneissoid

ˈnī-ˌsȯid 

adjective

gneissose

ˈnī-ˌsōs 

adjective

Examples of gneiss in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Be sure to visit this Blue Ridge Parkway town and its namesake geological formation — an ancient gneiss outcrop whose rocky bulk causes the wind to blow vertically, making objects appear to float skyward. —Anne Olivia Bauso, Travel + Leisure, 11 Apr. 2024

Back then, her great-great-great-uncle, the Viscount of Bom Retiro, expropriated private lands on behalf of the Brazilian state to reforest Rio’s peaks of granite and gneiss, which had been denuded by the growing coffee industry. —Michael Snyder Pedro Kok, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2024

One billion years ago, following millennia of uplift and erosion, the gneiss breached the surface with its psychedelic ripples and baroque bands—the gray and pink of quartz, feldspar, and granite; the dark green and black of hornblende and biotite mica. —Hugh Raffles, The New York Review of Books, 9 Oct. 2020

Outcrop of banded gneiss in the Canadian shield. —Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 15 May 2013

But its two-billion-year-old vertical black gneiss walls have been almost inaccessible for millennia, even to the Ute, the first inhabitants of this region. —Stephanie Pearson, Outside Online, 2 Nov. 2022

His sculpture in the exhibition is a stylized face of granitic gneiss, its hair indicated by a tuft from a musk ox. —Peter Saenger, WSJ, 28 Oct. 2022

The home is built of native gneiss granite, some quarried from the Willimantic River. —Melanie Savage, Hartford Courant, 27 Oct. 2022

Black Canyon is a park of extremes, both fertile springtime folly and menacing gash of gneiss and schist. —Emily Pennington, Outside Online, 28 Aug. 2020

Word History

Etymology

German Gneis, alteration of Middle High German gneiste spark, from Old High German gneisto; akin to Old English fȳrgnāst spark

First Known Use

1757, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

gneiss

noun

ˈnīs 

: a rock in layers that is similar in composition to granite