nepheline
noun
nepheline is a noun meaning “A feldspathoid mineral of silica-poor igneous, plutonic and volcanic rocks. Chemically, nepheline is a plagioclase feldspar with insufficient silica…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled N-E-P-H-E-L-I-N-E, and it appears about once in every 26 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of nepheline is nephelines.
What does nepheline mean?
noun
- 1
A feldspathoid mineral of silica-poor igneous, plutonic and volcanic rocks. Chemically, nepheline is a plagioclase feldspar with insufficient silica to satisfy the chemical bonds. Because of the unfilled bonds, nepheline weathers rapidly and can only be seen as inclusions in freshly broken rock.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of nepheline
- nephelines plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is nepheline?
Nepheline appears about once in every 26 million words in written English, the 154,067th 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).
Nepheline in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense feldspathoid mineral:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | nefelina |
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 nepheline come from?
From Ancient Greek νεφέλη (nephélē, “cloud”), because crystals become cloudy when exposed to acid, + -ine.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).