# ruina montium

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. A mining technique in Ancient Rome, similar in principle to Pascal's barrel, where miners would excavate narrow cavities in a mountain and fill them with water to cause pressures high enough to fragment the rock.

## Etymology
Borrowed from Latin ruīna montium (“collapse of mountains”).

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/ruina-montium