diagenesis
dia·gen·e·sis/ˌdaɪ.əˈd͡ʒɛ.nə.sɪs/noun
diagenesis is a noun meaning “All the chemical, physical, and biological changes sediment goes through during and after lithification, not including weathering or other surface…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-I-A-G-E-N-E-S-I-S and has 4 syllables (dia·gen·e·sis), and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of diagenesis is diageneses.
What does diagenesis mean?
noun
- 1
All the chemical, physical, and biological changes sediment goes through during and after lithification, not including weathering or other surface changes.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce diagenesis?
- /ˌdaɪ.əˈd͡ʒɛ.nə.sɪs/
- /ˌdaɪ.əˈd͡ʒɛ.nɪ.sɪs/
Diagenesis has 4 syllables, split dia·gen·e·sis in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Gt59514-diagenesis.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of diagenesis
- diageneses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is diagenesis?
Diagenesis appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st 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).
Diagenesis in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense all the chemical, physical, and biological changes sediment goes through during :
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | diagenèse |
| Spanish | diagénesis |
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 diagenesis come from?
Coined in the 18th century from greek meaning "Across Generation", dia- + genesis from Ancient Greek δια- (dia-, “through”) + γένεσις (génesis, “origin, creation”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).