Earth & SkyGreek → English
Halite
/ˈhælaɪt/noun
Rock salt, the mineral form of sodium chloride.
The Greek roots
ἅλς
háls
salt, sea
Literally: “salt mineral”
Follow a root:ἅλς4 words
The story of the word
The German mineralogist Ernst Friedrich Glocker gave the mineral this name in 1847, using the standard -ite ending on the ordinary Greek word for salt. That ἅλς also meant the sea, since the Greeks reached for the taste rather than the colour when naming it. The halogens are the salt-formers, and a halophyte is a plant that will grow in a salt marsh where nothing else can.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
halogenhalophytehalite dome
In a sentence
Whole cathedrals have been carved out of halite at Wieliczka.
Buried halite flows slowly under pressure and pushes up domes that trap oil.