tellurium
/tɪˈljʊəɹiəm/ noun
Forms telluriums
- noun (uncountable) The chemical element with atomic number 52. Symbol: Te. A rare, brittle, mildly toxic, silver-white metalloid.
- noun (countable) A single atom of this element.
Synonyms
Etymology
New Latin, coined by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1798, from Latin tellūs (“earth”) + -ium (“-ium”). Piecewise doublet of tellurion (see etymology 2).
Latin tellus (“earth”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A rare nonmetallic element, analogous to sulphur and selenium, occasionally found native as a substance of a silver-white metallic luster, but usually combined with metals, as with gold and silver in the mineral sylvanite, with mercury in Coloradoite, etc. Symbol Te.
Etymology [NL., from L. tellus, -uris, the earth.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “tellurium”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details