Wordsmith.org: the magic of words


A.Word.A.Day

About | Media | Search | Contact  


Home

Today's Word

Subscribe

Archives



Mar 3, 2016
This week’s theme
Well-traveled words

This week’s words
personalty
truchman
popinjay
arsenious
brio

arsenious
Bookmark and Share Facebook Twitter Digg MySpace Bookmark and Share
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

arsenious

PRONUNCIATION:
(ahr-SEE-nee-uhs)

MEANING:
adjective: Relating to or containing arsenic (especially when trivalent).

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French arsenic, from Latin arsenicum, from Greek arsenikon (yellow orpiment), from Arabic zarnik, from Persian zar (gold). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ghel- (to shine), which also gave us yellow, gold, glimmer, glimpse, glass, gloaming, melancholy, and choleric. Earliest documented use: 1818.

USAGE:
“The next time you’re having a bad day, pause for a moment to be grateful: that you weren’t born in the Victorian age and consequently are not likely to be in danger of being poisoned by arsenic. Come, come, you might be thinking. This is a slender reason to be cheerful -- who’s to say that anyone would wish to slip a splash of arsenious acid into my cup of tea?”
Rebecca Armstrong; Victorian Lives of Poison, Passion, and Peril; The Independent (London, UK); Mar 19, 2010.

“The institute detected an arsenious substance in some of the samples that was later found to be white arsenic.”
Arsenic at Hayashi House ‘Highly toxic’; The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo, Japan); Oct 20, 1998.

See more usage examples of arsenious in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind. -William Godwin, philosopher and novelist (3 Mar 1756-1836)

We need your help

Help us continue to spread the magic of words to readers everywhere

Donate

Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise

© 1994-2024 Wordsmith