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prettygoodwordshoad or shode (SHOHD) - (U.K., mining) n., loose fragments of ore/rock/etc. removed from their vein/outcrop and mixed with earth.
In American mining/geology, this is called float. If it's specifically ore washed downhill from its orebody, tracking back to its source is an old technique for finding more to mine -- so it's no surprise that this is an old word: in Middle English it was spelled shode/schode, from Old English scādan to divide/scatter, from (via Proto-Germanic) Proto-Indo-European *skey-, cut/divide/separate.
---L.
In American mining/geology, this is called float. If it's specifically ore washed downhill from its orebody, tracking back to its source is an old technique for finding more to mine -- so it's no surprise that this is an old word: in Middle English it was spelled shode/schode, from Old English scādan to divide/scatter, from (via Proto-Germanic) Proto-Indo-European *skey-, cut/divide/separate.
---L.
