Definitions

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

  • adjective Of or relating to certain minerals, such as quartz and the feldspars, that commonly occur in igneous rocks and contain large amounts of silica and alumina.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In petrography, in the quantitative system of classification, having the characters of or belonging to the first group of standard minerals, that is, those characterized chiefly by silica (quartz) or alumina (the normative feldspathic minerals). The salic minerals are normative quartz, feldspars, leucite, nephelite, sodalites, corundum, and zircon. See rock.
  • Based on or contained in the code of the Salian Franks: specifically applied to one of the laws in that code which excluded women from inheriting certain lands, probably because certain military duties were connected with such inheritance.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the Salian Franks, or to the Salic law so called.
  • adjective Specifically, in modern times, a law supposed to be a special application of the above-mentioned provision, in accordance with which males alone can inherit the throne. This law has obtained in France, and at times in other countries of Europe, as Spain.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[s(ilica) + al(umina) + –ic.]

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