Also 9 stalactyte. [Anglicized form of STALACTITES. Cf. F. stalactit (1752 in Hatz.-Darm.), G. stalaktit.
1. An icicle-like formation of calcium carbonate, depending from the roof or sides of a cavern and produced by the dropping of waters which have percolated through, and partially dissolved, the overlying limestone.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 96. Such are the stones made of nothing but such water, as it drops from the roofs and caverns of the Rocks, and therefore called Stalactites.
1789. Mills, in Phil. Trans., LXXX. 93. Some calcareous stalactites pendent from the roof.
1793. Phil. Trans., LXXXIV. 405. In one of them rises a stalactite of uncommon bigness.
1819. Shelley, Ode to Heaven, 31. Like weak insects in a cave, Lighted up by stalactites.
1847. Disraeli, Tancred, V. v. With pendants of daring grace hanging like stalactites from some sparry cavern.
1877. W. Black, Green Past., xxxvii. 295. They seem to be a stupendous semicircular wall of solid and motionless stalactites.
b. A similar formation of other material.
1801. J. Barrow, Trav. S. Africa, I. 164. From the under surfaces of the … rotten sand-stone were suspended a great quantity of saline stalactites.
1802. Acerbi, Trav., I. 44. All the rooms … were embellished by long stalactites of multifarious shapes … composed of the treacle and congealed water.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xi. 77. A vertical precipice, from the coping of which vast stalactites of ice depended.
1890. E. S. Dana, in J. D. Dana’s Charac. Volcanoes, 322. The delicate stalactites and stalagmites of lava which occur in the caverns.
1902. Cornish, Naturalist on Thames, 101. Stalactites of finest meal-dust hung from every nail … on the walls.
2. A general term for limestone found in this formation.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 88. Stalactite, alabaster, sinter.
1823. Buckland, Reliq. Diluv., 10. The roof and sides were found to be partially studded and cased over with a coating of stalactite.
1839. De la Beche, Rep. Geol. Cornwall, etc. xiii. 413. More or less filled by loam, sand, or stalactite.
1908. R. Farrer, in Blackw. Mag., July, 102/1. Shadowy cliffs of darkness, frescoed here and there with white crusts of stalactite.
3. Arch. (See quot. 1895.)
1895. Funk’s Stand. Dict., Stalactite.… A downward-projecting ornament of a vaulted surface.
4. attrib. and Comb.: stalactite-work Arch. (see quot. 1902.)
1864. J. Hunt, trans. Vogt’s Lect. Man, ix. 247. A stalactite roof.
1881–2. Clara Bell, trans. Ebers’ Egypt, I. 227. The stalactite ornament, as it has been called—from a false idea that it was an imitation of those fantastical natural formations which [etc.]. Ibid., 228. Perso-Turkish Stalactite Capital [figured].
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., IV. 798. Small stalactite-like projections.
1897. W. Millar, Plastering, 422. A stalactite-shaped cornice. Ibid., 425. Other mosques, palaces, and monuments with stalactite domes and cornices.
1902. R. Sturgis, Dict. Archit., III. 612. Stalactite work, a system of corbelling of peculiar form or the imitation of such corbelling in wood and plaster.
