Trona

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A white or grey naturally occurring mineral composed of hydrated sodium carbonate and bicarbonate, mined and used in making glass and detergents
2. A soda-bearing mineral found in evaporite deposits, valued as a source of sodium compounds for industrial manufacturing
3. An evaporite mineral rich in sodium carbonate that is extracted from dry lake beds and processed into materials such as glass

Etymology: Trona is a mineral, a hydrated sodium carbonate that forms in dry lake beds, and its name traces back to a substance the ancient Egyptians knew. The Greeks called it "nítron," and it passed through Arabic, where "naṭrūn" became "ʔaṭrūn," before reaching Spanish and Swedish. The Egyptian source is usually given as "nṯrj," a word for the natural salt used in embalming and cleaning, which shows that the chain of meaning started with a practical material rather than a geological concept. Trona is a doublet of "natron" and "niter." All three come from the same ancient root, but they reached English by different routes and took on slightly different senses: natron is the sodium carbonate of Egypt's salt deposits, while niter, the older name for saltpetre, went in a different direction entirely. Trona entered English through Spanish and Swedish rather than directly from Greek or Arabic.