whinstone
(ˈhwɪnstəʊn)
Also whimstone.
[f. whin2 + stone n.]
A name for various very hard dark-coloured rocks or stones, as greenstone, basalt, chert, or quartzose sandstone.
| 1513 Douglas æneis vii. Prol. 39 On raggit rolkis of hard harsk quhyne stane. 1763 W. Lewis Phil. Comm. Techn. 441 The stone called whynn stone, with which some of the streets of London have been lately paved. 1791 Beddoes in Phil. Trans. LXXXI. 65 Whether the basaltes proceeds southward..till it join the Elvin or whinstone, and granite of Devonshire and Cornwall. 1802 Playfair Illustr. Hutton. The. 66 The strata are intersected by veins of whinstone, porphyry and granite. 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Builder 289 In Scotland, whole towns are built of whin-stone. 1879 G. Macdonald Sir Gibbie xxi, Granite red and grey, blue whinstone, yellow ironstone, were all mingled. |
b. A boulder or slab of this rock. Often used fig. or allusively.
| a 1585 Montgomerie Flyting 744 Except I wer to force the with quhin staneis. 1803 Gazetteer Scot. s.v. Girvan, The coast is generally flat and sandy, interspersed with large whinstones, with which most of the houses are built. 1816 Scott Bl. Dwarf xi, The despair he felt..was..such as would have melted the heart of a whinstane. 1827 ― Jrnl. 15 Aug. in Lockhart, You might have been as well employed in buttering a whin-stone. 1865 G. Macdonald Alec Forbes xiv, He's a blue whunstane that's hard to dress. 1899 Crockett Kit Kennedy xlvi, An old man..that you told me was breaking whin-stones on the roadside. |
c. attrib. Pertaining to or consisting of whinstone; also fig. hard, tough.
| 1834 H. Miller Scenes & Leg. xi. (1857) 167 The castle—a grey whinstone building. 1874 Green Short Hist. i. §3. 25 The scant herbage scarce veils the whinstone rock. 1910 Buchan Prester John v, I haven't your whinstone nerve. |