Temanite

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rare crystalline mineral that is found in only a few known localities and is studied mainly by geologists
2. An uncommon naturally occurring mineral substance recognized by its specific crystal structure and chemical composition
3. A scarce mineral species identified by mineralogists through its distinctive crystal form and chemical makeup

Etymology: Temanite is a mineral name built on a place name, and the place it points to is a town in the Bible. Teman was an Edomite clan and its eponymous ancestor in the Hebrew Bible, and also an ancient town in Arabia Petraea. Biblical Hebrew used the same word, "teman," as a synonym for "south," and it was later applied to Yemen, which lies at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemenite Jews are called "Temanim" in Hebrew for this reason. The mineral takes its name from the "-ite" suffix, the conventional ending for minerals named after a locality, here a place associated with the name Teman. The sense of the word is therefore simply "a mineral from Teman," a label that says nothing about the stone itself beyond where it was named.