Boride

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A binary chemical compound in which boron is combined with a metal or another less electronegative element, often very hard and heat resistant
2. A substance formed when boron bonds with a more electropositive element, commonly used in hard, high-temperature materials
3. Any chemical compound made of boron and one other element, such as titanium or tungsten, valued for its hardness and melting point

Etymology: Boride is a chemistry coinage built from "boron" and the suffix "-ide," the standard ending for binary compounds of an element with a more electronegative partner. The name of the element itself reaches English by a long detour. Boron comes from "bor(on)," the element's name, which was modeled on borax, the mineral that had been known for centuries before anyone isolated what was inside it. Borax has an unexpectedly far-travelled ancestry. It passed from Middle Persian "bōrag" into Arabic as "bawraq," then into Medieval Latin as "borax," and from there into Anglo-Norman and Middle English as "boras." The word was used for a salt long before anyone knew it contained an element, and the chemists who isolated that element in the early nineteenth century named it after the salt. Once "boron" existed, forming "boride" was straightforward: the element name plus "-ide" gives a compound in which boron is combined with a less electronegative element or group, such as a metal. The ending itself descends from Latin "-idus" through Proto-Italic, and English took it up for chemical names of this kind.