Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PEB'BLE, or PEB'BLE-STONE, n. [Sax. pabob, papolstana.]

In popular usage, a roundish stone of any kind from the size of a nut to that of a man's head. In a philosophical sense, minerals distinguished from flints by their variety of colors, consisting of crystaline matter debased by earths of various kinds, with veins, clouds and other variations, formed by incrustation round a central nucleus, but sometimes the effect of a simple concretion. Pebbles are much used in the pavement of streets. – Encyc. A general term for water-worn minerals. – D. Olmsted.