Earth & SkyGreek → English
Sphalerite
/ˈsfæləraɪt/noun
Zinc sulphide, the world's main ore of zinc, in crystals from honey yellow to almost black.
The Greek roots
σφαλερός
sphalerós
treacherous, deceptive
Literally: “the deceiver”
Follow a root:σφαλερός1 word
The story of the word
Ernst Friedrich Glocker named it in 1847 for its long record of fooling miners, who took the heavy dark crystals for galena and then got no lead out of them. German miners had already called it Blende, from blenden, to blind or deceive, so the mineral has been called a liar in two languages. The root σφάλλω, to trip or make fall, also produced ἄσφαλτος and so the asphalt underfoot, the stuff that does not slip.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1847
In a sentence
Nearly all the world's indium comes out of sphalerite, riding along in place of zinc.