This article lists the etymology of chemical elements of the periodic table.
History
Throughout the history of chemistry, many chemical elements have been discovered. In the 19th century, Dmitri Mendeleev formulated the periodic table, a table of elements which describes their structure. Because elements have been discovered at various times and places, from antiquity through the present day, their names have derived from several languages and cultures.
41 of the 118 known elements have names associated with, or specifically named for, places around the world or among astronomical objects. 32 of these have names tied to the places on Earth, and the other nine are named after to Solar System objects: helium for the Sun; tellurium for the Earth; selenium for the Moon; mercury (indirectly), uranium, neptunium and plutonium after their respective planets of Uranus and Neptune, and the dwarf planet Pluto (the latter of which was still considered a planet at the time of plutonium's naming); cerium for the dwarf planet Ceres (also considered a planet at the time of naming) and palladium for the asteroid Pallas.[1]
Other element names given after people have been proposed but failed to gain official international recognition. These include columbium (Cb), hahnium (Ha), joliotium (Jl), and kurchatovium (Ku), names connected to Christopher Columbus, Otto Hahn, Irène Joliot-Curie, and Igor Kurchatov; and also cassiopeium (Cp), a name coming from the constellation Cassiopeia and is hence indirectly connected to the mythological Cassiopeia.
For the last two decades, IUPAC has been the governing body for naming elements. IUPAC has also provided a temporary name and symbol for unknown or recently synthesized elements.
Named after the Greek ἥλιος (helios), meaning "the sun" or the mythological sun-god.[3] It was first identified by its characteristic emission lines in the Sun's spectrum.
From Greek λίθος (lithos) meaning "stone", because it was discovered from a mineral while other common alkali metals (sodium and potassium) were discovered from plant tissue.
βήρυλλος (beryllos), denoting beryl, which contains beryllium.[4] The word is derived (via Latin: beryllus and French: béryl) from the Greek βήρυλλος (bērullos), "a blue-green spar", from Prakritवॆरुलिय (veruliya), from Pāliवेलुरिय (veḷuriya), भेलिरु (veḷiru) or भिलर् (viḷar): "to become pale", in reference to the pale semiprecious gemstone beryl.[5]
From the Arabic بورق (buraq), which refers to borax. Possibly derived from Persianبوره (burah). The Arabic was adapted as Medieval Latinbaurach, Anglo-Normanboreis, and Middle Englishboras, which became the source of the English "boron".
From French charbone, which in turn came from Latin carbō, meaning "charcoal" and is related to carbōn, meaning "a coal". (The German and Dutch names, "Kohlenstoff" and "koolstof", respectively, both literally mean "coal matter".) These words come from the Proto-Indo-European base *ker- meaning "heat", "fire", or "to burn".[6]
From French nitrogène[7] derived from Greek νίτρον γείνομαι (nitron geinomai), meaning "I form/beget native-soda (niter)".[8]
· Former name azote (French), from Greek ἄζωτος (azōtos) "lifeless" but possibly inspired by azoth, one of the alchemical names of mercury, from Andalusian Arabical-zuq, the Classical Arabic name of that element.
From Greek ὀξύγείνομαι (oxy geinomai), meaning "Ι bring forth acid", as it was believed to be an essential component of acids. This phrase was corrupted into the French oxygène, which became the source of the English "oxygen".[9]
· Symbol Na is from the Neo-Latin noun natrium, derived from Greek νίτρον (nítron), "natural soda, a kind of salt".[10] The original source is either the Arabic word نطرون (natrun) or the Egyptian word netjeri.[11]
From Greek φῶς + φόρος (phos + phoros), which means "light bearer", because white phosphorus emits a faint glow upon exposure to oxygen. Phosphorus was the ancient name for Venus, or Hesperus, the Morning Star.[3]
The word came into Middle English from Anglo-Norman sulfre, itself derived through Old French soulfre from Late Latin sulfur.[16] From Proto-Indo-European*swelp "to burn"
From the English "potash": pot-ash (potassium compound prepared from an alkali extracted in a pot from the ash of burnt wood or tree leaves). Potash is a calque of Dutch potaschen, which means "pot ashes".[19]
· Symbol K is for the Latin name kalium, from Arabicالقلي (al qalīy), which means "calcined ashes".
From Greek χρῶμα (chróma), "colour", because of its multicoloured compounds. This word was adapted as the French chrome, and adding the suffix -ium created the English "chromium".[23]
From German Kobold, which means "goblin". The metal was named by miners, because it was poisonous and troublesome (polluted and degraded by other mined elements, such as nickel). Other sources cite the origin in the silver miners' belief that cobalt had been placed by "Kobolds", who had stolen the silver. Some suggest that the name may have been derived from Greek κόβαλος (kobalos), which means "mine" and which may have common roots with kobold, goblin, and cobalt.
Possibly from Greek Κύπριος (Kyprios) (which comes from Κύπρος (Kypros), the Greek name of Cyprus) via Latin cuprum, West Germanic *kupar, Old English coper/copor, and Middle English coper. The Latin term, during the Roman Empire, was aes cyprium; aes was the generic term for copper alloys such as bronze. Cyprium means "Cyprus" or "which is from Cyprus", where so much of it was mined; it was simplified to cuprum and then eventually Anglicized as "copper" (Old English coper/copor).
· Symbol Cu is from the Latin name cuprum ("copper").
From Latin Gallia, which means "Gaul" (Ancient France), and also gallus, which means "rooster". The element was obtained as free metal by Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who named it after his native land France. Allegations were later made that he had also named it for himself, as gallus is Latin for le coq ("rooster"), but he denied that this had been his intention.[27]
· Former name eka-aluminium by Mendeleev, who predicted its existence.[21]
From Greek ἀρσενικόν (arsenikon), which is adapted from Syriacܠܫܢܐܠܐ ܙܐܦܢܝܐ ((al) zarniqa)[28] and Persianزرنيخ (zarnik), "yellow orpiment". The Greek arsenikon is paretymologically related to the Greek word ἀρσενικός (arsenikos), which means "masculine" or "potent". These words were adapted as the Latin arsenicum and Old French arsenic, which is the source for the English arsenic.[28]
From Greek κρυπτός (kryptos), which means "hidden one", because of its colourless, odorless, tasteless, gaseous properties, as well as its rarity in nature.
Named after strontianite, the mineral. Strontianite itself was named after the town of Strontian (Scotland) where the mineral was found; Sròn an t-Sìthein literally means "nose ['point'] of the fairy hill".
From Arabicزركون (zarkûn). Derived from Persianزرگون (zargûn), which means "gold-like". Zirkon is the German variant of these and is the origin of the English zircon.[33]
Named after Pallas, the asteroid discovered two years earlier. The asteroid itself was named after Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom and victory.[3] The word Palladium is derived from Greek Παλλάδιον and is the neuter version of Παλλάδιος, meaning "of Pallas".[36]
"Earth" (as classical element), "calamine" or Cadmean earth[?]
From Latin cadmia, which is derived from Greek καδμεία (kadmeia) and means "calamine", a cadmium-bearing mixture of minerals. Cadmium is named after Cadmus (in Greek: Κάδμος: Kadmos), a character in Greek mythology and calamine is derived from Le Calamine, the French name of the Belgian town of Kelmis.
Named after indigo, because of an indigo-coloured spectrum line. The English word indigo is from Spanish indico and Dutch indigo (from Portuguese endego), from Latin indigo, from Greek ἰνδικόν (indikon): "blue dye from India".
Possibly from Greek ἀντί + μόνος (anti + monos), approximately meaning "opposed to solitude", as believed never to exist in pure form, or ἀντί + μοναχός (anti + monachos) for "monk-killer" (in French folk etymology, anti-moine "monk's bane"), because many early alchemists were monks, and antimony is poisonous. This may also be derived from the Pharaonic (Ancient Egyptian), Antos Ammon (expression), which could be translated as "bloom of the god Ammo".
· Symbol Sb is from Latin name stibium, which is derived from Greek Στίβι (stíbi), a variant of στίμμι (stimmi); genitive: στίμμεος or στίμμιδος; probably a loan word from Arabic or Egyptian sdm meaning "eyepaint".
Named after the Greek ἰώδης (iodes), which means "violet", because of the colour of the gaseous phase. This word was adapted as the French iode, which is the source of the English "iodine".[42]
From Latin caesius, which means "sky blue". Its identification was based upon the bright-blue lines in its spectrum, and it was the first element discovered by spectrum analysis.
βαρύς (barys) means "heavy". The oxide was initially called "barote", then "baryta", which was modified to "barium" to describe the metal. Humphry Davy gave the element this name because it was originally found in baryte, which shares the same source.[44]
Named after the asteroid Ceres, discovered two years earlier. The asteroid itself, now classified as a dwarf planet, was named after Ceres, the goddess of fertility in Roman mythology.[3]Ceres is derived from Proto-Indo-European*ker-es- from base *ker- meaning "to grow".[45][46]
Named in honour of Johan Gadolin,[49] who was one of the founders of Nordic chemistry research, and who discovered § yttrium. The mineral gadolinite is also named after him.
Named after Ytterby, Sweden, where large concentrations of minerals yttria and erbia are located. Erbia and terbia were confused at this time. After 1860, what had been known as terbia was renamed erbia, and after 1877, what had been known as erbia was renamed terbia.[31]
Named after Greek Τάνταλος (Tantalus), who was punished after death by being condemned to stand knee-deep in water. If he bent to drink the water, it drained below the level he could reach (in Greek mythology). This was considered similar to tantalum's general non-reactivity (that is, "unreachability") because of its inertness (it sits among reagents and is unaffected by them).[3]
· Former name Wolfrahm (German, literally "wolf cream") was the historical name. The names wolfram or volfram are still used in Swedish and several other languages.[22]
Named after the Latin noun iris, which means "rainbow, iris plant, iris of the eye", because many of its salts are strongly coloured; Iris was originally the name of the goddess of rainbows and a messenger in Greek mythology.[3]
From the Spanish, platina, which means "little silver", because it was first encountered in a silver mine. The modern Spanish is platino. Platina is a diminutive of plata (silver); it is a loan word from French plate or Provençalplata (sheet of metal) and is the origin of the English "plate".[53]
Named after Mercury, the god of speed and messenger of the Gods, as was the planet Mercury named after the god.
· Symbol Hg is from Latin hydrargyrum, which is from the Greek words ὕδωρ and ἀργυρός (hydor and argyros). Meaning "water-silver", because it is a liquid like water (at room temperature), and has a silvery metallic sheen.[3][55]
From Greek proto- "first" + Neo-Latin actinium (itself from Greek ἀκτίς, gen.[?]: ἀκτῖνος) "ray": proto(-)actinium, later shortened to protactinium.[58]
Named after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered eight years earlier in 1781. The planet was named after the god Uranus, the god of sky and heaven in Greek mythology.[3]
Named after the dwarf planet Pluto (then considered to be the ninth planet), because it was discovered directly after element neptunium (§ Np) and is higher than element uranium (§ U) in the periodic table. Thus, plutonium was named by analogy with the ordering of the planets, ending with Pluto. Pluto itself was named after Pluto, a Greek god of the dead.[3] Greek Πλούτων (Ploutōn) is related to the word πλοῦτος (ploutos) meaning "wealth".
Named for the Americas, because it was discovered in the United States; by analogy with europium (§ Eu). The name of the continent America itself is derived from the name of the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.
· Former names: hahnium (Ha) was proposed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in honour of Otto Hahn, for his pioneering work in radioactivity and radiochemistry, but the proposal was rejected.[22] unnilpentium (Unp, '105'): temporary systematic name and symbol.[61]
Named after the US state of Tennessee, itself named after the Cherokee village of ᏔᎾᏏ (tanasi), where important work for one of the steps to synthesise the element was done in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
^Nitrogen, The pure gas is inert enough that Antoine Lavoisier referred to it as azote, meaning "without life", since animals placed in it died of asphyxiation. This term became the French for nitrogen and later spread to many other languages.
^ abcdefghijklmnoeka-... named elements: Mendeleevpredicted and described properties of then-unknown elements, based on the then empty locations in his 1871 Periodic table. The predictions proved to be correct with the discovery of scandium, gallium, technetium and germanium. He named those unknown, unnamed elements "eka-...", for example "eka-boron"; the prefix means one more (i.e., one more row below boron in the periodic table). Ultimately, eka-boron was discovered, named "aluminium" and indeed is located below boron.
The elements he predicted, eka-boron, eka-aluminium, eka-manganese, and eka-silicon proved to be good predictors of scandium, gallium, technetium and germanium, respectively.
The prefix eka-, from the Sanskrit, means "one" (one place down from a known element in the table), and is sometimes used in discussions about any more undiscovered element. For example, darmstadtium is sometimes referred to as eka-platinum.
Littré suggests that the first form is derived from *stimmida, a hypothetical alternative accusative of stimmi (the canonical accusative of the noun is the same as the nominative: stimmi). The Arabic word for the substance, as "mark" or "the cosmetic", can appear as تحميض، ثمود، وثمود، وثمود (ithmid, athmoud, othmod or uthmod)
LSJ, s.v., vocalisation, spelling, and declension vary; Endlich; Celsus, 6.6.6 ff; Pliny Natural History 33.33; Lewis and Short: Latin Dictionary. OED, s. antimony.
stimmi is used by the Attic tragic poets of the 5th century BC. Later Greeks also used στίβι (stibi), which is written in Latin by Celsus and Pliny the Elder in the first century AD. Pliny also names stimi [sic], larbaris, and alabaster (Greek: ἀλάβαστρον), "very common platyophthalmos (πλατυόφθαλμος)", "wide-eye" in Greek (the description refers to the effects of the cosmetic). In Egyptian hieroglyphics, mśdmt; the vowels are uncertain, but in Coptic and according to an Arabic tradition, it is pronounced mesdemet (Albright; Sarton, quotes Meyerhof, the translator). In Arabic, the word for powdered stibnite is kuhl.[1]
^ abdidymium was originally mistaken for an element, later it was discovered that it separates into elements #Pr and #Nd. The metals have different-coloured salts, which helps distinguish them.
^The ancient Greek derivation of Prometheus from the Greek πρό pro ("before") + μανθάνω manthano ("learn"), thus "forethought", which engendered a contrasting brother Epimetheus ("afterthought"), was a folk etymology; it is succinctly expressed in Servius' commentary on Virgil, Eclogue 6.42: "Prometheus vir prudentissimus fuit, unde etiam Prometheus dictus est ἀπὸ τής πρόμηθείας, id est a providentia." Modern scientific linguistics suggests that the name derived from the Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the Vedicpra math, "to steal", hence pramathyu-s, "thief", cognate with "Prometheus", the thief of fire. The Vedic myth of fire's theft by Mātariśvan is an analog to the Greek account. Pramantha was the tool used to create fire. See: Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing, p. 27.; Williamson (2004), The Longing for Myth in Germany, 214–15; Dougherty, Carol (2006). Prometheus p. 4.
^Protactinium; In 1913, Kasimir Fajans and Otto H. Göhring identified and named element 91 brevium, from Latin brevis, which means "brief, short"; protactinium has a short half-life. The name was changed to "protoactinium" in 1918 and shortened to protactinium in 1949.
