Earth & SkyGreek → English
Apatite
/ˈæpətaɪt/noun
A calcium phosphate mineral, the main crystalline material of bone and tooth enamel.
The Greek roots
ἀπάτη
apátē
deceit, trickery
Literally: “the deceiver”
Follow a root:ἀπάτη2 words
The story of the word
Abraham Gottlob Werner named it in 1786 from ἀπάτη, deceit, because collectors kept filing it under beryl, olivine, amethyst and half a dozen other stones. The insult has outlived him in an odd way: apatite turns out to be the mineral your skeleton and your teeth are built from, so the great impostor is the most familiar rock in the human body. Hesiod had already made Ἀπάτη a person, one of the grim daughters of Night.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- early 19th century
In a sentence
The blue-green crystals in the drawer were apatite, not aquamarine.
Tooth enamel is almost pure apatite, which is why acid attacks it so easily.