bentonite
noun
bentonite is a noun meaning “Any of several impure clay minerals consisting mostly of montmorillonite” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled B-E-N-T-O-N-I-T-E and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of bentonite is bentonites.
What does bentonite mean?
noun
- 1
Any of several impure clay minerals consisting mostly of montmorillonite.
- 2
A porous clay formed by the decomposition of volcanic ash that swells 5 to 6 times its original volume in the presence of water.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce bentonite?
Bentonite has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of bentonite
- bentonites plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is bentonite?
Bentonite appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 60,074th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Bentonite in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | bentonite |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does bentonite come from?
From Benton + -ite, after the place where it was first mined: Fort Benton, Montana.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).