| / English Dictionary |
STONY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: stonier , stoniest
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Hard as granite
Example:
a granitic fist
Synonyms:
granitelike; granitic; rocklike; stony
Classified under:
Similar:
hard (resisting weight or pressure)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings
Example:
the child's misery would move even the most obdurate heart
Synonyms:
flint; flinty; granitic; obdurate; stony
Classified under:
Similar:
hardhearted; heartless (lacking in feeling or pity or warmth)
Derivation:
stone (a lack of feeling or expression or movement)
stone (the hard inner (usually woody) layer of the pericarp of some fruits (as peaches or plums or cherries or olives) that contains the seed)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Abounding in rocks or stones
Example:
bouldery beaches
Synonyms:
bouldered; bouldery; rocky; stony
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
rough; unsmooth (having or caused by an irregular surface)
Derivation:
stone (a lump or mass of hard consolidated mineral matter)
Context examples:
Their absolute steepness is indicated in the photograph which I took over the stony desert.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour; but in the evening, when the weather permitted, I walked on the stony beach of the sea to listen to the waves as they roared and dashed at my feet.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which—for the eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death—and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor; the lips were as red as ever.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger with the words: This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
But the Houyhnhnms train up their youth to strength, speed, and hardiness, by exercising them in running races up and down steep hills, and over hard stony grounds; and when they are all in a sweat, they are ordered to leap over head and ears into a pond or river.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, marish vegetation greatly delayed our progress; but by little and little the hill began to steepen and become stony under foot, and the wood to change its character and to grow in a more open order.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
I bought a country dress to put upon her; and I know'd that, once found, she would walk beside me over them stony roads, go where I would, and never, never, leave me more.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
During this time we traversed a barren and forbidding country, which alternated between stony desert and desolate marshes full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and east of the cliffs.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I knew by her stony eye—opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears—that she was resolved to consider me bad to the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous pleasure: only a sense of mortification.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
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