1a. A building material made by grinding calcined limestone and clay to a fine powder, which can be mixed with water and poured to set as a solid mass or used as an ingredient in making mortar or concrete. b. Portland cement. c. Concrete. 2. A substance that hardens to act as an adhesive; glue. 3. Something that serves to bind or unite: “Custom was in early days the cement of society” (Walter Bagehot). 4.Geology A chemically precipitated substance that binds particles of clastic rocks. 5.Dentistry A substance used for filling cavities or anchoring crowns, inlays, or other restorations. 6. Variant of cementum.
1. To bind with or as if with cement. 2. To cover or coat with cement.
INTRANSITIVE VERB:
To become cemented.
IDIOM:
in cement Firmly settled or determined; unalterable: The administration's position on taxes was set in cement despite the unfavorable public response.
ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, from Old French ciment, from Latin caementum, rough-cut stone, rubble used in making concrete, from caedere, to cut. See ka-id- in Appendix I.
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-id- in Appendix I.
