Etymology

cipolin

C3I1P3O1L1I1N1

Today it means: A white-green wavy-banded form of marble, used in buildings in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. It consists of coloured veins of epidote and chlorite. Full definition →

Italian cipollino
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The story

  1. Italian · borrowed fromcipollino“a little onion”
  2. English todaycipolin

From Italian cipollino (“a little onion”), from cipolla (“onion”) (compare English cibol). So called because its veins consist, like onions, of different strata, one lying upon another.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.