Earth & SkyGreek → English
Kyanite
/ˈkaɪənaɪt/noun
A blue aluminium silicate mineral formed in metamorphic rock, used in refractories.
The Greek roots
κύανος
kýanos
dark blue enamel
Literally: “blue stone”
Follow a root:κύανος5 words
The story of the word
Werner named it in 1789 for the colour. Κύανος in Homer is the dark blue inlay running along Agamemnon's breastplate, and the same word darkens a sea before a storm. The blades are so much softer along their length than across it that the mineral also went by disthene, two strengths, and a knife will prove it in a second. Cyanide reached the same root by a longer road, having been drawn out of the pigment Prussian blue.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- early 19th century
Same family
cyancyanidecyanosiscyanobacteria
In a sentence
Kyanite blades lay across the schist like splinters of blue glass.
Kilns are lined with bricks made from kyanite.