Pyroxene

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /paɪˈɹɒk.siːn/

Definitions

1. A group of rock-forming silicate minerals commonly found in igneous and metamorphic rocks, characterized by single chains of silicon-oxygen tetrahedra
2. A category of silicate minerals that typically form in high-temperature settings within igneous and metamorphic rocks, recognized for their unique chain structure of silicon and oxygen
3. These minerals are essential constituents of the Earth's crust, primarily associated with volcanic and tectonic processes, exhibiting a distinctive silicate chain arrangement

Etymology: The name "pyroxene" was coined by the French mineralogist René Just Haüy, who in the early 1800s is usually credited with it, and its literal sense is "fire stranger." The Greek "pyr" means fire, and "xenos" means stranger or guest, so the label was meant to describe a mineral that seemed foreign to the fire-formed rocks it appeared in, and to be counted among them. Haüy used the term for minerals that people had previously confused with other species, since they looked like the dark crystals found in volcanic rock but did not behave like them. The sense of "stranger" comes from the same root that gives English "xenon" and "xenophobia," which is a useful reminder that "xeno-" in scientific words almost always points to something unfamiliar or out of place. Here the stranger is a crystal that turned up in lava and igneous rock and seemed to belong to a different family than the minerals around it.