noun
- a soil common in cool or temperate semiarid climates, very black and rich in humus and carbonates.
noun
- a black soil, rich in humus and carbonates, in cool or temperate semiarid regions, as the grasslands of Russia
1842, from Russian chernozem, literally “black earth,” from chernyi “black,” from PIE *kers- “dark, dirty” (see Krishna) + zemlya “earth, soil,” from Old Russian zemi “land, earth,” from PIE *dhghem- “earth” (see chthonic).