Chromium

How to spell chromium

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce chromium

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chromium mean?

1. nounA hard, silvery metallic element used for plating, alloying with steel, and producing coloured pigments.

Chromium in a sentence

• The factory adds chromium to steel to make it resist rust.

• The vintage motorcycle had bumpers plated in shiny chromium.

Where does chromium come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Chromium takes its name from the Greek word chroma, meaning 'colour', and the metallic element suffix -ium that chemists use for naming metals such as sodium and titanium. The element was isolated around 1797 by the French chemist Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, who proposed the name because chromium forms compounds in a striking range of vivid colours, from deep reds to brilliant greens and yellows. The same chroma root sits inside everyday words like 'chrome', 'monochrome', and 'chromatic', all of which deal with colour in one way or another. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle, where the 'i' of -ium is easy to drop or muddle, and the silent-feeling 'h' after the 'c' that English keeps from the Greek spelling. Remembering that it shares its first half with 'chrome' on a shiny car bumper helps fix the chrom- beginning in mind.

How the word is built

• chrom- (from Greek chroma: colour)
• -ium (suffix forming names of metallic elements)