Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Nitrate
/ˈnaɪtreɪt/noun
A salt or ester of nitric acid, used in fertiliser, explosives and food curing.
The Greek roots
νίτρον
nítron
natron, soda
Literally: “salt of natron”
Follow a root:νίτρον3 words
The story of the word
νίτρον was not saltpetre at all but natron, the sodium carbonate dug from Egyptian lake beds and used to dry out mummies; the Greeks borrowed the word along with the mineral from Egyptian. Medieval Latin quietly moved the name onto potassium nitrate, and the modern chemical sense follows that shift rather than the original. The old meaning survives in the symbol Na for sodium, from natrium, and in the name of Wadi Natrun.
- How it travelled
- Egyptian → Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
nitrogennitrenatronnitroglycerine
In a sentence
Nitrate runoff from the fields is what turned the lake green by August.