Aluminium

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˌæl.(j)ʊˈmɪn.i.əm/

Definitions

1. A lightweight metallic element commonly employed in manufacturing and construction, distinguished by its silvery luster and corrosion resistance
2. This element, known for its malleability and low density, is frequently utilized in the automotive and aerospace industries
3. A soft, silver-white metal known as aluminium with the chemical symbol Al and atomic number 13, notable for being the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust and widely used in packaging and transportation

Etymology: The American spelling that British speakers love to mock is the original, and an Englishman coined it. The British form came second, as a correction of taste. The story starts with alum, a salt prized since antiquity. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder described several kinds of Latin "alumen," a strongly astringent substance used to fix dyes in wool, to treat wounds and ailments, and for other practical work. The word probably rests on an old Italic base "alu-," something like "bitter substance" or "bitter salt," possibly related to Greek words for "bitter" and, more speculatively, to English "ale" and some Baltic and Slavic words for beer. "Alumen" passed through Old French "alum" or "alun" into English as "alum." Late eighteenth-century chemists then called the earthy base of alum "alumine," or in English "alumina," and suspected it was the oxide of an unknown metal. Humphry Davy, the electrochemical showman of London's Royal Institution, set out to free that metal with his batteries, as he had freed sodium and potassium. In an 1808 paper he proposed calling it "alumium." He never actually isolated it; others managed that in the 1820s. But he kept refining the name, and by 1812, in his "Elements of Chemical Philosophy," he had settled on "aluminum." The objection came almost at once. Reviewing Davy's book in 1812, an anonymous critic, usually identified as the physician and polymath Thomas Young, announced that he would write "aluminium" instead, preferring it to "aluminum, which has a less classical sound." The extra syllable matched the other new metals of the day: sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium all ended in Latin "-ium." To a classically trained ear, Davy's form looked like a slip in his own pattern. For roughly thirty years chemists used both spellings without settling anything. Davy's "aluminum" never died. It took hold in the United States, while Young's "aluminium" became the standard in Britain and most of the English-speaking world. So when a Briton corrects an American's pronunciation, he is defending the revision against the original. The original was the coinage of the British chemist who named the metal and tried to isolate it, four years after he had proposed a third name that neither side now uses.

Synonyms: aluminum