- stone
- [[t]sto͟ʊn[/t]]
♦♦stones, stoning, stoned(The plural is usually stone in meaning 10.)1) N-MASS Stone is a hard solid substance found in the ground and often used for building houses.
He could not tell whether the floor was wood or stone...
People often don't appreciate that marble is a natural stone.
...stone walls.
2) N-COUNT A stone is a small piece of rock that is found on the ground.He removed a stone from his shoe...
The crowd began throwing stones.
3) N-COUNT A stone is a large piece of stone put somewhere in memory of a person or event, or as a religious symbol.The monument consists of a circle of gigantic stones.
4) N-UNCOUNT: oft with brd-neg Stone is used in expressions such as set in stone and tablets of stone to suggest that an idea or rule is firm and fixed, and cannot be changed.He is merely throwing the idea forward for discussion, it is not cast in stone...
Scientific opinions are not carved on tablets of stone; they change over the years.
5) N-COUNT You can refer to a jewel as a stone....a diamond ring with three stones.
6) N-COUNT: usu n N A stone is a small hard ball of minerals and other substances which sometimes forms in a person's kidneys or gall bladder.He had kidney stones.
7) N-COUNT The stone in a plum, cherry, or other fruit is the large hard seed in the middle of it. [mainly BRIT](in AM, usually use pit)8) VERB If you stone a fruit, you remove its stone. [mainly BRIT](in AM, usually use pit)[V n] Then stone the fruit and process the plums to a puree.
9) VERB If people stone someone or something, they throw stones at them.[V n] Youths burned cars and stoned police...
[V n] A post office was set on fire and vehicles were stoned by looters.
10) N-COUNT: usu num N A stone is a measurement of weight, especially the weight of a person, equal to 14 pounds or 6.35 kilograms. [BRIT]I weighed around 16 stone.
11) → See also , foundation stone, , precious stone, stepping stone12) PHRASE: PHR prep/adv If you say that one place is a stone's throw from another, you mean that the places are close to each other....a two-bedroom apartment just a stone's throw from the beach...
Just a stone's throw away is the City Art Gallery.
13) PHRASE: V inflects (emphasis) If you say that you will leave no stone unturned, you are emphasizing that you will try every way you can think of in order to achieve what you want.He said he would leave no stone unturned in the search for peace.
English dictionary. 2008.
