Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Magnesium
/mæɡˈniːziəm/noun
The light silvery metal that burns with a white flame, essential to plant and animal life.
The Greek roots
Μαγνησία
Magnēsía
Magnesia, a Greek district
Literally: “of Magnesia”
Follow a root:Μαγνησία5 words
The story of the word
Greek named several minerals after Magnesia, though scholars disagree whether the source is the Thessalian district or the Lydian city of the same name. One of them gave magnesia alba, the white powder, and Humphry Davy took the metal's name from it when he isolated it by electrolysis in 1808. Magnet and manganese come out of the same place name, which is a lot of chemistry from one patch of ground.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1808
Same family
magnetmanganesemagnesia
In a sentence
Early photographers set off magnesium flash powder and half-blinded their sitters.
Magnesium sits at the centre of every chlorophyll molecule.