Arsenic

How to spell arsenic

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce arsenic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does arsenic mean?

1. nounA brittle, highly poisonous chemical element used in some pesticides, alloys, and semiconductors.

Arsenic in a sentence

• The laboratory tested the well water for traces of arsenic.

• Old wallpaper pigments sometimes contained dangerous levels of arsenic.

Where does arsenic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Arsenic reaches English through a long chain of borrowing that began in Persia. The ultimate source is the Old Persian word zarnik, meaning 'golden', a name for the bright yellow mineral orpiment (a sulphide of arsenic) that was prized as a pigment. This passed into Arabic as az-zarnikh, and Greek speakers reshaped it as arsenikon, apparently associating it with arsenikos, meaning 'male' or 'virile', because alchemists imagined metals as having gendered, potent qualities. Latin took it up as arsenicum, and English borrowed it through Old French in the late fourteenth century, at first naming the yellow pigment and only later the poisonous element itself. The single 's' and the unstressed second syllable are the spelling traps, since the word is so often heard rather than written.

How the word is built

• arsen- (from Greek arsenikon, the yellow mineral orpiment)
• -ic