BEDROCK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bedrock mean? 

• BEDROCK (noun)
  The noun BEDROCK has 2 senses:

1. solid unweathered rock lying beneath surface deposits of soil

2. principles from which other truths can be derived

  Familiarity information: BEDROCK used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEDROCK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Solid unweathered rock lying beneath surface deposits of soil

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("bedrock" is a kind of...):

rock; stone (a lump or mass of hard consolidated mineral matter)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Principles from which other truths can be derived

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

basic principle; basics; bedrock; fundamental principle; fundamentals

Context example:

let's get down to basics

Hypernyms ("bedrock" is a kind of...):

principle (a basic truth or law or assumption)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bedrock"):

ABC; ABC's; ABCs; alphabet; first principles; rudiments (the elementary stages of any subject (usually plural))

 Context examples 

As grounded ice retreats inland, the bedrock under it lifts up elastically.

(Antarctica's Effect on Sea Level Rise in Coming Centuries, NASA)

Antarctica's bedrock is laced with rivers and lakes, the largest of which is the size of Lake Erie.

(Hot News from the Antarctic Underground, NASA)

Also, at great depth, the water-ice bedrock of Titan is softer than rock on Earth.

(Cassini Spies Titan's Tallest Peaks, NASA)

The concept of Earth's "critical zone" — the swath from the top of the tree canopy down to bedrock — gives scientists the framework to look at the environment from a larger perspective.

(Study reveals surprising role of dust in mountain ecosystems, National Science Foundation)

But a new study at the University of California (UC), Davis, shows that more than a quarter of that nitrogen is derived from the weathering of Earth's bedrock.

(New source of global nitrogen discovered: Earth’s bedrock, National Science Foundation)

Buried under the Greenland Ice Sheet, the subcontinent's bedrock topography has been estimated using soundings from ice-penetrating radar.

(Hidden Greenland canyons mean more sea level rise, NASA)

Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2, the second phase of an effort by a group of scientists to produce long records of climate by drilling into the Greenland Ice Sheet from the surface to bedrock.

(GISP2, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)

It has been a bedrock tenet of geophysics that Earth's liquid outer core has always been the source of the dynamo that generates its magnetic field.

(Earth's mantle, not its core, may have generated planet's early magnetic field, National Science Foundation)

The glacier has been coming unstuck from a ridge in the bedrock at a steady rate of about 0.4 to 0.5 miles (0.6 to 0.8 kilometers) a year since 1992.

(Huge Cavity in Antarctic Glacier Signals Rapid Decay, NASA)

The mountains are probably composed of Pluto’s water-ice “bedrock.”

(The Icy Mountains of Pluto, NASA)