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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Syenite

Syenite \Sy"e*nite\, n. [L. Syenites (sc. lapis), from Syene, Gr. ?.] (Min.)

  1. Orig., a rock composed of quartz, hornblende, and feldspar, anciently quarried at Syene, in Upper Egypt, and now called granite.

  2. A granular, crystalline, ingeous rock composed of orthoclase and hornblende, the latter often replaced or accompanied by pyroxene or mica. Syenite sometimes contains nephelite (el[ae]olite) or leucite, and is then called nephelite (el[ae]olite) syenite or leucite syenite.

Wiktionary
syenite

n. 1 (context geology obsolete English) granite 2 (context geology English) An igneous rock composed of feldspar and hornblende

Wikipedia
Syenite

Syenite is a coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock with a general composition similar to that of granite, but deficient in quartz, which, if present at all, occurs in relatively small concentrations (<5%). Some syenites contain larger proportions of mafic components and smaller amounts of felsic material than most granites; those are classed as being of intermediate composition. The volcanic equivalent of syenite is trachyte.

Usage examples of "syenite".

Near the coast the lower hills are composed of crystalline rocks, syenite and granite, with, here and there, a strata of sandstone or limestone.

There were high baobabs--to which, however, an extraordinary longevity has been falsely attributed--the bark of which resembles Egyptian syenite, Bourbon palms, white pines, tamarind-trees, pepper-plants of a peculiar species, and a hundred other plants that an American is not accustomed to see in the northern region of the New Continent.

The sun, piercing the green carpet, then showed its structure of red, syenite granite, similar to slabs of lapis-lazuli.

Scores of beautiful vases of alabaster, breccia, marble, and soapstone, wrought in some cases to the thinness of a modern china cup, suggest at once the protodynastic Egyptian bowls of diorite and syenite, and show that if the Cretan took the idea from Egyptian models, he was not behind his master in the skill with which he carried it out.

On various sites in the palace at Knossos there have been found stone vessels of diorite, syenite, and liparite, exquisitely wrought.

Egypt is afforded by the fact that vases of Proto-Dynastic Egyptian form in diorite and syenite were discovered in the south and east quarters of the palace at Knossos.

Stonehenge got their mysterious syenite, and that one black sandstone so different from the rest.

There are the pink and red Syenites, porphyritic granite, yellow granite, grey granite, both black granite and white, and granites veined with black and veined with white.

The pale vermilion tones of the walls, staircases and vertical columns were in sharp contrast to the domed masses of the chocolate and violet andesite cliffs, cut by blue and grey porcelain-like paths of cast syenite.

Scores of beautiful vases of alabaster, breccia, marble, and soapstone, wrought in some cases to the thinness of a modern china cup, suggest at once the protodynastic Egyptian bowls of diorite and syenite, and show that if the Cretan took the idea from Egyptian models, he was not behind his master in the skill with which he carried it out.

It was then passing over Mabunguru, a stony country, strewn with blocks of syenite of a fine polish, and knobbed with huge bowlders and angular ridges of rock.