n. (Min.) Cassiterite. [ 1913 Webster ]
n. (Mining) The valueless nonmetalliferous mineral or rock material which surrounds the ores in a vein, as quartz, calcite, barite, fluor spar, etc.; gangue; matrix; -- called also
n. [ Whin + stone; cf. Scot. quhynstane. ] A provincial name given in England to basaltic rocks, and applied by miners to other kind of dark-colored unstratified rocks which resist the point of the pick. -- for example, to masses of chert. Whin-dikes, and whin-sills, are names sometimes given to veins or beds of basalt. [ 1913 Webster ]