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Andrew's Geology Blog

By Andrew Alden, About.com Guide to Geology since 1997

May I Say: Poikilitic?

Thursday May 29, 2008
poikiliticIt pays to increase your word power. Perhaps you're really into biology because one day you learned the term "poikilotherm," meaning an animal whose temperature varies along with the environment. Reptiles are poikilotherms, frogs and fish too. My wife endeared herself to me, early in our courtship, the day she said "I'm a poikilotherm" to explain her cold hands. See, that paid off for her. In geology, we have the term "poikilitic," meaning a rock texture in which the largest crystals are varied inside, containing little grains of different minerals. Perhaps you can charm somebody one day when you say "I'm poikilitic." The only person I can imagine saying that, though, is the old lady in the song who swallowed a fly (I don't know why she swallowed a fly), then swallowed a spider to catch the fly, and so on.
Poikilitic texture — Geology Guide photo

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