Mineral

How to spell mineral

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mineral

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mineral mean?

1. nounA naturally occurring inorganic substance with a definite chemical composition, such as quartz, salt, or iron ore.
2. adjectiveRelating to or consisting of minerals, as in mineral water or mineral rights.

Mineral in a sentence

• noun

  The museum displayed a rare mineral found deep in the mine.

• adjective

  She ordered a bottle of sparkling mineral water with lunch.

• noun

  Calcium is an essential mineral for healthy bones.

• adjective

  The company purchased the mineral rights to the land beneath the farm.

Where does mineral come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Medieval Latin minerale, meaning 'something obtained by mining', which was formed from minera, a word for an ore or a mine. The root is closely tied to the verb behind the English word 'mine', the activity of digging valuable material out of the ground, and you can still hear that connection in the opening syllable 'miner-'. English took the word in during the late 1300s and early 1400s, first to describe substances dug from the earth, then settling into its modern scientific meaning of a naturally occurring inorganic solid. The spelling trap sits in the middle and the end: the unstressed vowels in 'min-er-al' all soften to a schwa, so writers can hesitate over whether it is -er-al, -ar-al, or -ral. Remembering the link to a 'miner' who digs ore keeps that first 'e' in place.

How the word is built

• miner- (from Medieval Latin minera: ore, mine)
• -al (noun/adjective suffix)