Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A light yellow, red-brown, or black mineral, SnO2, that is an important tin ore. Also called tinstone.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Native tin dioxid, SnO2, a mineral crystallizing in tetragonal forms, usually of a brown to black color, and having a splendent adamantine luster on the crystalline faces. Its specific gravity is very high, nearly equal to that of metallic iron; it generally occurs in irregular masses and grains, disseminated in granite, gneiss, clay slate, mica slate, and porphyry; also in reniform shapes with fibrous radiated structure (wood-tin), and in rolled pieces or grains, as sand, in which last condition it is known as stream-tin. It is the principal source of metallic tin, occurring in many localities, the most important of which are Cornwall in England, the Erzgebirge in Saxony and Bohemia, Finland, the island of Banca near Sumatra, and Queensland in Australia. It has recently been found in some quantity in Dakota. The supply at present is chiefly drawn from Australia.
Wiktionary
- n. mineralogy A generally black mineral, composed of tin oxide, SnO2, which is an important ore of tin.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Min.) Native tin dioxide; tin stone; a mineral occurring in tetragonal crystals of reddish brown color, and brilliant adamantine luster; also massive, sometimes in compact forms with concentric fibrous structure resembling wood (wood tin), also in rolled fragments or pebbly (Stream tin). It is the chief source of metallic tin. See black tin, under black.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a hard heavy dark mineral that is the chief source of tin
Etymologies
- French cassitérite, from Greek kassiteros, tin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“~ Tin is found in nature chiefly as the oxide (SnO_ ), called cassiterite or tinstone.”
“In certain exceptional cases this may contain some unaltered cassiterite, which is easily recognised by its appearance.”
A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines.
“The global coltan price has collapsed, so now they focus hungrily on cassiterite, which is used to make tin cans and other consumer disposables.”
“This is especially important for those valuable minerals which exhibit a brittle to very brittle tenacity, such as cassiterite, sphalerite and the tungsten minerals scheelite and wolframite.”
“Congo is awash with gold, diamonds and metals such as cassiterite and coltan used to weld small pieces together in electronics.”
“A month ago, TV5MONDE found that armed elements were systematically pilliaging cassiterite in Walikale [a territory in North Kivu] with the complicity of Kinshasa.”
Global Voices in English » New bill to increase oversight of American mining companies in DRC
“On April 23rd, Republican senator Sam Brownback introduced the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009, cosponsored by senators Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin, which would require American companies mining coltan, cassiterite, and wolframite to report annually to the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency that regulates American financial markets, to disclose the country of origin of the minerals to the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
Global Voices in English » New bill to increase oversight of American mining companies in DRC
“Fifteen existing villages of shifting cultivators, and mining settlements for gold, cassiterite and coltan were located in the west section of the Park, though neither they nor the indigenous pygmies were consulted when it was created; and several villages in the buffer zone, where the boundary had never been defined, were sources of conflict.”
“The minerals in question—cassiterite, columbite-tantalite, gold and wolframite—are widely used in consumer electronics and other products, although Congo supplies no more than 20% of global demand for these raw materials.”
“The Kinshasa government recently imposed a new ban on mining in the eastern part of the country, North and South Kivu and Maniema, rich in coltan and cassiterite, used in mobile phones and other electronic items.”
The Huffington Post: Evelyn Leopold: Congo Massacres: First Revenge, Then Blood Money
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cassiterite’.
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Minerals and Mineralogy
List of minerals, elements, group names and geochemistry terms encountered in the science of mineralogy. I've chosen to avoid capital letters in most examples, though a great many mineral names hon...
galkhaite, xanthoconite, pyrostilpnite, polybasite, pyrargyrite, djurleite, digenite, covellite, chalcocite, cerargirite, acanthite, aeschynite and 2608 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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