Chabasie

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rhombohedral zeolite mineral composed of hydrated calcium aluminium silicate, often found in volcanic rock cavities
2. A hydrated silicate of calcium and aluminium belonging to the zeolite group, typically occurring as small crystals in basalt
3. Chabazie is a mineral from the zeolite family, made of calcium, aluminium, silicon and oxygen, that forms glassy crystals in cavities

Etymology: Chabasie is an obsolete spelling of chabazite, a mineral, and its name rests on a copying error made in antiquity. The ancient Greek poem ascribed to Orpheus lists twenty kinds of stone, and one of them appears in the manuscripts as "khabázios." That form was almost certainly a slip for "khalázios," a word for a precious stone whose root is "khálaza," meaning hail, probably because the stone's crystals were thought to resemble hailstones. The modern name came much later. The French mineralogist Louis-Augustin Bosc d'Antic took the corrupted Greek form and coined "chabasie" in French, so the mineral was named from a scribal mistake rather than from the word the poet intended. English later adopted the name as "chabazite," while "chabasie" survived for a time as an older spelling.

Synonyms: chabazite