gangue
Pluralgangues
- 1The earthy, worthless material that occurs mixed together with metallic ore.
Like the chaff separated from wheat: what's left over once the valuable part is taken.
The mill separates valuable ore from gangue using a series of flotation tanks.
Heaps of discarded gangue piled up beside the processing plant.
Similarmatrix
Oppositeore
Note
Mining borrowed this word from French, and in English it is a doublet of gang: one source, two words that went separate ways. It works as a mass noun (the gangue, much gangue) and also counts, with the plural gangues for distinct kinds. Waste is relative, though: Paul T. Craddock's Early Metal Mining and Production (1995) describes the semi-vitrified gangue of primitive smelting as still rich in prills of copper.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with gangue, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
Borrowed from French "gangue". It is a doublet of "gang".