COBALT

cobalt, Co, atomic number

(noun) a hard ferromagnetic silver-white bivalent or trivalent metallic element; a trace element in plant and animal nutrition

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

cobalt (usually uncountable, plural cobalts)

A chemical element (symbol Co) with an atomic number of 27: a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal.

Cobalt blue.

Proper noun

Cobalt

A village in Connecticut

A town in Ontario.

An unincorporated community in Idaho.

Source: Wiktionary


Co"balt (; 277, 74), n. Etym: [G. kobalt, prob. fr. kobold, kobel, goblin, MHG. kobolt; perh. akin to G. koben pigsty, hut, AS. cofa room, cofgodas household gods, Icel. kofi hut. If so, the ending -old stands for older -walt, -wald, being the same as -ald in E. herald and the word would mean ruler or governor in a house, house spirit, the metal being so called by miners, because it was poisonous and troublesome. Cf. Kobold, Cove, Goblin.]

1. (Chem.)

Definition: A tough, lustrous, reddish white metal of the iron group, not easily fusible, and somewhat magnetic. Atomic weight 59.1. Symbol Co.

Note: It occurs in nature in combination with arsenic, sulphur, and oxygen, and is obtained from its ores, smaltite, cobaltite, asbolite, etc. Its oxide colors glass or any flux, as borax, a fine blue, and is used in the manufacture of smalt. It is frequently associated with nickel, and both are characteristic ingredients of meteoric iron.

2. A commercial name of a crude arsenic used as fly poison. Cobalt bloom. Same as Erythrite.

– Cobalt blue, a dark blue pigment consisting of some salt of cobalt, as the phosphate, ignited with alumina; -- called also cobalt ultramarine, and Thenard's blue.

– Cobalt crust, earthy arseniate of cobalt.

– Cobalt glance. (Min.) See Cobaltite.

– Cobalt green, a pigment consisting essentially of the oxides of cobalt and zinc; -- called also Rinman's green.

– Cobalt yellow (Chem.), a yellow crystalline powder, regarded as a double nitrite of cobalt and potassium.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

6 May 2025

HEEDLESS

(adjective) marked by or paying little heed or attention; “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics”--Franklin D. Roosevelt; “heedless of danger”; “heedless of the child’s crying”


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Coffee Trivia

An article published in Harvard Men’s Health Watch in 2012 shows heavy coffee drinkers live longer. The researchers examined data from 400,000 people and found out that men who drank six or more coffee cups per day had a 10% lower death rate.

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