metalliferous
adjective
metalliferous is an adjective meaning “Containing a metallic element. Often used to describe ores that are mined commercially” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled M-E-T-A-L-L-I-F-E-R-O-U-S, and it appears about once in every 38 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does metalliferous mean?
adjective
- 1
Containing a metallic element. Often used to describe ores that are mined commercially.
Cassiterite is a metalliferous ore containing tin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of metalliferous
- more metalliferous comparative
- most metalliferous superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is metalliferous?
Metalliferous appears about once in every 38 million words in written English, the 189,524th 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).
Metalliferous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense containing a metallic element:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | métallifère |
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 metalliferous come from?
From metal + -iferous.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).