1. The worthless rock or mineral material that surrounds or is mixed with ore in a mine.
Usage: Mining and geology term; Uncountable noun

Examples

• The miners had to remove tons of gangue to extract the valuable copper ore.
• Gangue minerals are separated from the ore during the processing stage.
• The quality of the ore deposit depends on the ratio of metal to gangue.
• Quartz is often found as gangue in gold mining operations.
• Processing plants use various methods to separate gangue from the desired minerals.