A pebble or rock fragment shaped by wind erosion to have three sharp edges or faces.
From German 'Dreikanter,' literally 'three-edged thing,' from 'drei' (three) plus 'Kant' (edge). Used as a geology term borrowed from German to describe wind-shaped rocks.
Geologists borrowed this German term because it describes a specific, beautiful phenomenon—in desert regions, wind-blown sand sculpts rocks into perfectly triangular shapes, and German scientists named the phenomenon so precisely that English scientists just adopted the word.
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