Also trevertine. [ad. It. travertino, older tivertino ‘a kind of stone to build withall’ (Florio):—L. tīburtīnus TIBURTINE. Cf. F. travertin, in Cotgr. trevertin.] A white or light-colored concretionary limestone, usually hard and semi-crystalline, deposited from water holding lime in solution; also called travertine stone; quarried in Italy for building. A less solid porous form is known as calcareous tufa.
[1555. Eden, Decades, 340. And [silver] is often tymes founde in an other stone lyke vnto Treuertino or in Treuertino it selfe.]
1797. Holcroft, trans. Stolberg’s Trav., III. lxxxviii. 455. They are … of the travertine stone.
1868. Lyell, Princ. Geol. (ed. 10), II. III. xlvii. 544. Encrusted with a calcareous cement resembling travertin.
1875. Merivale, Gen. Hist. Rome, lxxix. (1877), 669. The travertine, or limestone of Tivoli,… was used to a great extent to cover the plain brickwork.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 122. At the falls of the Anio, the travertine has formed bed after bed to the thickness of four or five hundred feet.
b. attrib. Of, composed of, or of the nature of travertine.
1797. [see above].
1842. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., V. 171/2. The Italian fresco workers … sometimes used puzzolano mixed with Trevertine lime.
1909. Eng. Rev., Feb., 585. Sanger found these travertine mounds in every stage of development.
