marble

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A metamorphic rock formed by alteration of limestone or dolomite, often irregularly colored by impurities, and used especially in architecture and sculpture.
• noun A piece of this rock.
• noun A sculpture made from this rock.
• noun Something resembling or suggesting metamorphic rock, as in being very hard, smooth, or cold.
• noun A small hard ball, usually of glass, used in children's games.
• noun Any of various games played with marbles.
• noun Slang Common sense; sanity.
• noun Marbling.
• transitive verb To mottle and streak (paper, for example) with colors and veins in imitation of marble.
• adjective Composed of metamorphic rock.
• adjective Resembling metamorphic rock in consistency, texture, venation, color, or coldness.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To give an appearance of marble to; stain or vein like variegated marble: as, to marble paper; a book with marbled edges. See marbling, 3.
• noun Limestone in a more or less crystalline or crystalline-granular condition.
• noun A piece of sculptured or inscribed marble, especially if having some interest as an object of study or curiosity, and more particularly if ancient; any work of art in marble: as, the Elgin marblcs. -
• noun A little ball of marble or other stone, or of baked clay, porcelain, or glass, used by children in play; an alley. -
• noun In glassblowing, a block or thick piece of wood in which are formed hemispherical concavities, used in the manufacture of flasks, etc., to shape the fused glass gathered upon the end of the glass-blower's pipe into an approximately spherical form by pressing and turning it over in the concavities preparatory to the blowing. See marver. [In this sense improperly spelled marbel.] -5. Marble-silk.
• noun plural A venereal disease, probably bubo.
• Consisting of marble: as, a marble pillar.
• Veined or stained like marble; variegated in color; marbled.
• Resembling or comparable to marble in some particular; hard and cold, crystalline, frigid, insensible, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Made of, or resembling, marble
• adjective Cold; hard; unfeeling.
• transitive verb To stain or vein like marble; to variegate in color.
• noun A massive, compact limestone; a variety of calcite, capable of being polished and used for architectural and ornamental purposes. The color varies from white to black, being sometimes yellow, red, and green, and frequently beautifully veined or clouded. The name is also given to other rocks of like use and appearance, as serpentine or verd antique marble, and less properly to polished porphyry, granite, etc.
• noun A thing made of, or resembling, marble, as a work of art, or record, in marble; or, in the plural, a collection of such works
• noun A little ball of glass, marble, porcelain, or of some other hard substance, used as a plaything by children; or, in the plural, a child's game played with marbles.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun uncountable A rock of crystalline limestone.
• noun countable A small spherical ball of rock, glass, ceramic or metal used in children's games.
• verb transitive To cause (something to have) the streaked or swirled appearance of certain types of marble, for example by mixing viscous ingredients incompletely, or by applying paint or other colorants unevenly.
• verb intransitive To get the streaked or swirled appearance of certain types of marble, for example due to the incomplete mixing of viscous ingredients, or the uneven application of paint or other colorants.
• verb transitive To cause meat, usually beef, pork, or lamb, to be interlaced with fat so that its appearance resembles that of marble.
• verb intransitive, of meat To become interlaced with fat.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a small ball of glass that is used in various games
• noun a sculpture carved from marble
• verb paint or stain like marble
• noun a hard crystalline metamorphic rock that takes a high polish; used for sculpture and as building material