Pyritize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Turns a material or substance into the iron sulfide mineral known as fool's gold through chemical change
2. Transforms something so that it becomes pyrite, the brassy iron sulfide mineral often mistaken for gold
3. Converts a substance into iron disulfide, the yellow mineral commonly called fool's gold, by a process of sulfur replacement

Etymology: Pyritize is a plain modern formation: "pyrite" with the suffix "-ize", meaning to make into or treat with the thing named. Pyrite itself comes from Latin "pȳritēs", borrowed from Greek "pūrītēs", an adjective meaning "of fire" or "fire-like", built on "pûr", fire. The name was applied to the mineral because a stone struck with steel or another hard object throws off sparks, and the same idea lies behind the older English name fool's gold, since the brassy, shining mineral looks like the real metal but is worth far less. The suffix has a longer story than the word it sits on. The Greek ending "-izein" was taken into Late Latin as "-izare" and then passed through French into Middle English, where it was spelled "-isen" and later became "-ize". English writers used it freely to form verbs from nouns, so "pyrite" plus "-ize" gives a verb for turning something into pyrite, a process that is not very common outside geology and mining.