meerschaum

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: meer=schaum

CIDE DICTIONARY

meerschaum, n. [G., lit., sea foam; meer sea + schaum foam; but it perh. is a corruption of the Tartaric name myrsen. Cf. Mere a lake, and Scum.].

•  A fine white claylike mineral, soft, and light enough when in dry masses to float in water. It is a hydrous silicate of magnesia, and is obtained chiefly in Asia Minor. It is manufacturd into tobacco pipes, cigar holders, etc. Also called sepiolite.  [1913 Webster]
•  A tobacco pipe made of this mineral; a meerschaum pipe.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

meerschaum, n.
1 a soft white form of hydrated magnesium silicate, chiefly found in Turkey, which resembles clay.
2 a tobacco-pipe with the bowl made from this.

Etymology

G, = sea-foam f. Meer sea + Schaum foam, transl. Pers. kef-i-darya, with ref. to its frothiness

DEVIL DICTIONARY

meerschaum

n. (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been disclosed by the manufacturers.

There was a youth (you've heard before,
This woeful tale, may be),
Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore
That color it would he!

He shut himself from the world away,
Nor any soul he saw.
He smoke by night, he smoked by day,
As hard as he could draw.

His dog died moaning in the wrath
Of winds that blew aloof;
The weeds were in the gravel path,
The owl was on the roof.

"He's gone afar, he'll come no more,"
The neighbors sadly say.
And so they batter in the door
To take his goods away.

Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,
Nut-brown in face and limb.
"That pipe's a lovely white," they say,
"But it has colored him!"

The moral there's small need to sing --
'Tis plain as day to you:
Don't play your game on any thing
That is a gamester too.
Martin Bulstrode

THESAURUS

meerschaum

Missouri meerschaum, accommodate, act between, adjust, arbitrate, bargain, briar, briar pipe, calean, calumet, churchwarden, clay, compose, compound, compromise, cop out, corncob, corncob pipe, duck responsibility, evade responsibility, give and take, give way, go between, go fifty-fifty, hookah, hubble-bubble, intercede, intermediate, interpose, intervene, judge, make a deal, make an adjustment, make concessions, make terms, mediate, meet halfway, moderate, nargileh, negotiate, peace pipe, pipe, pipe cleaner, pipe rack, play politics, reach a compromise, referee, represent, settle, split the difference, step in, strike a balance, strike a bargain, surrender, take the mean, tobacco pipe, tobacco pouch, treat with, umpire, yield