Chalcophile

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A chemical element that readily combines with sulfur to form stable sulfide compounds
2. An element that has a strong tendency to bond with sulfur and form sulfide minerals
3. A substance whose atoms preferentially associate with sulfur rather than oxygen or other elements

Etymology: Chalcophile is a technical coinage from chemistry and geology, built from the Greek "khalkos", meaning copper or bronze, and the suffix "-phile", from "philos", meaning loving or fond of. Put together, the parts describe a substance with an affinity for copper-like, sulfur-bearing ore minerals. Geochemists use the term for elements that tend to concentrate in sulfide minerals and sulfur-rich melts, rather than in silicate rock. The word belongs to a family of coinages that were formed on the same pattern, such as siderophile (iron-loving) and lithophile (stone-loving), each naming a group of elements by where they tend to gather in the Earth. The Greek roots are ancient, but the compound itself is a modern scientific creation, not a word the Greeks would have recognised. Its specific sense is one of the handful of ways chemists have sorted the elements according to their behaviour in the planet's interior.