NICKEL

nickel

(noun) a United States coin worth one twentieth of a dollar

nickel, nickel note

(noun) five dollars worth of a drug; “a nickel bag of drugs”; “a nickel deck of heroin”

nickel, Ni, atomic number

(noun) a hard malleable ductile silvery metallic element that is resistant to corrosion; used in alloys; occurs in pentlandite and smaltite and garnierite and millerite

nickel

(verb) plate with nickel; “nickel the plate”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

nickel (countable and uncountable, plural nickels)

(uncountable) A silvery elemental metal with an atomic number of 28 and symbol Ni.

(US, Canada, countable) A coin worth 5 cents.

(US, slang, by extension) Five dollars.

(US, slang, by extension) Five hundred dollars.

(US, slang, sometimes the nickel or the hot nickel) Interstate 5, a highway that runs along the west coast of the United States.

(slang) A playing card with the rank of five

(US, slang) A five-year prison sentence.

(American football) A defensive formation with five defensive backs, one of whom is a nickelback, instead of the more common four.

Verb

nickel (third-person singular simple present nickels, present participle nickelling or nickeling, simple past and past participle nickelled or nickeled)

(transitive) To plate with nickel.

Anagrams

• Nickle, inleck

Etymology

Proper noun

Nickel

A patronymic surname.

Anagrams

• Nickle, inleck

Source: Wiktionary


Nick"el, n. Etym: [G., fr. Sw. nickel, abbrev. from Sw. kopparnickel copper-nickel, a name given in derision, as it was thought to be a base ore of copper. The origin of the second part of the word is uncertain. Cf. Kupfer-nickel, Copper-nickel.]

1. (Chem.)

Definition: A bright silver-white metallic element. It is of the iron group, and is hard, malleable, and ductile. It occurs combined with sulphur in millerite, with arsenic in the mineral niccolite, and with arsenic and sulphur in nickel glance. Symbol Ni. Atomic weight 58.6.

Note: On account of its permanence in air and inertness to oxidation, it is used in the smaller coins, for plating iron, brass, etc., for chemical apparatus, and in certain alloys, as german silver. It is magnetic, and is very frequently accompanied by cobalt, both being found in meteoric iron.

2. A small coin made of or containing nickel; esp., a five-cent piece. [Colloq. U.S.] Nickel silver, an alloy of nickel, copper, and zinc; -- usually called german silver; called also argentan.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

29 May 2025

CRITICAL

(adjective) characterized by careful evaluation and judgment; “a critical reading”; “a critical dissertation”; “a critical analysis of Melville’s writings”


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Coffee Trivia

Coffee dates back to the 9th century. Goat herders in Ethiopia noticed their goats seem to be “dancing” after eating berries from a particular shrub. They reported it to the local monastery, and a monk made a drink out of it. The monk found out he felt energized and kept him awake at night. That’s how the first coffee drink was born.

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