Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Lithium
/ˈlɪθiəm/noun
The lightest metal, used in rechargeable batteries and in psychiatric medicine.
The Greek roots
λίθος
líthos
stone
Literally: “stone metal”
Follow a root:λίθος15 words
The story of the word
Johan August Arfwedson found the new alkali in the mineral petalite in 1817, and Berzelius named it from λίθος, stone. The point of the name was a contrast: soda and potash had come from plant ash, while this alkali came out of rock. Its use as a mood stabiliser was rediscovered by John Cade in Australia in 1949, which makes it one of the few elements prescribed as a drug in its raw ionic form.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1818
Same family
monolithmegalithlithographypalaeolithic
In a sentence
Half the world's lithium supply comes out of a handful of salt flats.
She has been stable on lithium for eleven years and has the blood tests to prove it.