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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A widespread colorless, white, or yellowish mineral, CaSO4·2H2O, used in the manufacture of plaster of Paris, various plaster products, and fertilizers.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Native hydrous sulphate of calcium, a mineral usually of a white color, but also gray, yellow, red, and when impure brown or black. It is soft and easily scratched; the crystalline varieties, called selenite, are generally perfectly transparent, and cleave readily, yielding thin flexible folia. The crystals are frequently twinned, and often have an arrowhead form. The massive varieties are fibrous (satin-spar), foliated, lamellar-stellate, granular to impalpable. The fine-grained pure white or delicately colored variety is called alabaster, and is used for ornamental purposes; the impure earthy kind, when reduced to the anhydrous form by heat, is called plaster of Paris, and is used extensively for making molds, etc. (See plaster.) Gypsum ground to a powder is used as a fertilizer.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A mineral consisting of the hydrated calcium sulphate. When calcined, it forms plaster of Paris.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Min.) A mineral consisting of the hydrous sulphate of lime (calcium). When calcined, it forms plaster of Paris. Selenite is a transparent, crystalline variety; alabaster, a fine, white, massive variety.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a common white or colorless mineral (hydrated calcium sulphate) used to make cements and plasters (especially plaster of Paris)

Etymologies

  1. Latin gypsum, from Ancient Greek γύψος. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English gipsum, from Latin gypsum, from Greek gupsos, probably of Semitic origin; akin to Arabic jibs, jiṣṣ, jaṣṣ, from Akkadian gaṣṣu. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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‘gypsum’ has been looked up 2212 times, loved by 4 people, added to 18 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 14.