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# shale

«shale» in Mova's school dictionary: **a soft grey or dark rock made of hardened mud or clay…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (shale — usually uncountable)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Shale is a soft grey or dark rock made of hardened mud or clay that splits easily into thin flat layers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#m1)

2) Shale is also a source of oil and gas that companies drill for. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In geography and science it is a sedimentary rock, made when mud settles and is pressed over millions of years; fossils are often found in it; in news it comes with «shale gas» and «fracking»; phrases: shale gas, shale oil, oil shale.

### examples

- The cliff was made of crumbly grey shale. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#x1)
- Shale splits into thin flakes when you tap it. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#x2)
- We found a fossil fern in a piece of shale. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#x3)
- Shale is a sedimentary rock made from mud. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#x4)
- Some companies drill deep into shale to get gas. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#x5)
- The path was slippery with loose shale. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/#x6)

### note

Usually uncountable: «some shale», «a piece of shale». Do not confuse with «slate», which is shale changed by heat and pressure into a harder rock; and with «shell».

### In the corpora

- [Shale and mudstone are made of very fine mud that settled in calm water, and they are the most common sedimentary rocks.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/49-sedimentary-and-metamorphic-rocks/9/)
- [Slate is shale changed by pressure so that it splits into thin, flat sheets, which is why it is used for roofs.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/49-sedimentary-and-metamorphic-rocks/14/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «shale» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shale/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.