outcropping

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a part of a rock formation that is exposed at the surface of the surrounding ground

   Quartz glittered in an outcropping above the desert trail.

The noun is formed from outcrop + -ing. Outcrop combines out with crop in the older sense 'to appear or emerge at the surface' and became a geological term for exposed rock in the nineteenth century.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images