diatomaceous earth

1. 1.

   a light soil consisting of siliceous diatom remains and often used as a filtering material

   Synonymsdiatomitekieselguhr

   Broaderearthfilter

Questions about diatomaceous earth

What does diatomaceous earth mean?

diatomaceous earth means "a light soil consisting of siliceous diatom remains and often used as a filtering material".

What is another word for diatomaceous earth?

Close synonyms include diatomite, kieselguhr. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is diatomaceous earth a common word?

diatomaceous earth is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.