Earth & SkyGreek → English
Diaspore
/ˈdaɪəspɔːr/noun
An aluminium oxide hydroxide mineral, and separately in botany a seed or unit of a plant dispersed as a whole.
The Greek roots
διά
diá
apart, across
σπείρειν
speírein
to scatter, sow
Literally: “scattering apart”
The story of the word
Haüy named the mineral in 1801 for what it does in a flame: it decrepitates, scattering itself into fragments as the water is driven off. Botanists later took the same Greek noun for whatever unit a plant sends out to travel, whether that is a seed, a fruit or a whole tumbleweed. The identical roots produce diaspora, used of the scattered Jewish communities in the Septuagint long before it meant anything else.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1801
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
diasporasporesporadic
In a sentence
Turkish diaspore is cut as a gemstone that shifts from green to raspberry under different lights.