Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A silvery or pale gray metallic rare-earth element found in monazite and bastnaesite and used as a dopant for laser materials, in infrared absorbing glass, and as a neutron absorber in certain nuclear reactors. Atomic number 62; atomic weight 150.36; melting point 1,072°C; boiling point 1,791°C; specific gravity (approximately) 7.50; valence 2, 3. See Table at element.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The name given by Lecoq de Bois-baudran to a metal which he supposed he had discovered in the mineral samarskite by the aid of the spectroscope. Nothing further is known of it, nor has its existence been, as yet, definitely established.
- n. This metal belongs to the cerium group. The oxid is white, the salts yellow, and characteristic absorption and spark spectra have been obtained. Like so many other members of the cerium and yttrium groups, samarium is of uncertain individual identity. There seems now but little doubt that in its oxid as originally described there is present at least one other element, the europium of Demarçay, Urbain, and Lacombe.
Wiktionary
- n. A metallic chemical element (symbol Sm) with an atomic number of 62.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Chem.) A rare metallic element of doubtful identity.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a grey lustrous metallic element of the rare earth group; is used in special alloys; occurs in monazite and bastnasite
Etymologies
- After samarskite, in turn honoring Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets (Wiktionary)
- samar(skite) + -ium. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“China controls up to 97% of world production of these elements — which include samarium, scandium and yttrium — and its export quotas for this year are nearly exhausted.”
“Fortunately a team from the University of Maryland has discovered a cleaner replacement for PZT, bismuth samarium ferrite (BSFO).”
Sustainable Design Update » Blog Archive » Making Electronics More Environmental Friendly
“It sold neodymium and samarium, which form the basis of extraordinarily powerful magnets needed for precision-guided missile systems and the batteries used in hybrid or electric vehicles.”
The Washington Post: China increasing economic leverage by limiting 'rare earths' exports
“This resulted in geochemists realizing that the Earth, the Moon, and Mars all have lithic compositions that contain anywhere from five to eight percent more neodymium and samarium than the chondritic meteorites do.”
“A closer comparison and analysis of the two very similar elements samarium and neodymium followed, as their half-lives provide insight that allow geochemists to mentally reconstruct the formation of the solar system.”
“LEMON cerium germanium gold hafnium iodine iron lanthanum neodymium phosphorus praseodymium protactinium samarium scandium silver sulphur thorium titanium uranium vanadium yttrium zirconium”
“After receiving his M.S. he stayed on at Tsinghua University as a research assistant of Professor C.H. Wong and carried out the x-ray structure determination of tricyclopentadienyl samarium.”
“Rare earths with critical military applications include samarium, used for super-strong samarium-cobalt magnets that help steer guided missiles.”
“These obscure minerals - 17 different elements with futuristic names such as neodymium, samarium, yttrium and lanthanum - are crucial for everything from guided missiles and hybrid cars to flat-screen televisions, iPods and BlackBerry phones.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘samarium’.
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SCIE - EU nomenclature
All the scientific words found in the official EU nomenclature. For the screening I used Vocabgrabber of the Visual Thesaurus.
abdominal, absorbent, accelerator, accumulator, acebutolol, acetamide, acetanilide, acetate, acetic acid, acetone, acetous, acetyl and 1171 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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Chemical Elements
A list of chemical elements
hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium and 106 more...
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beyond pale
Words meaning or invoking the different aspects of pale.
Not just colour, but also the ideas of impermanence, illness, weakness. (Just not the two noun forms – a thin strip of metal or woo...pale, pallid, wan, light, misty, ethereal, cream, dim, white, thin, waning, colourless and 62 more...
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lasers
words associated with LASERS.
( open list, randomness )
NOTE: i'd like to keep the list specific to the LASER itself (Any LASER), and leave out applied sciences..
sp...electromagnetism, light, wavelength, phase, frequency, polarization, emission, optical, spectroscopy, lase, crystal, projection and 61 more...
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bilby's Words
pandemic, whirl, guffaw, ethereal, feisty, dunt, ephemeral, pule, flipergebet, prink, maunder, gammon and 1023 more...
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The Elements
hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium and 99 more...
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y so
atomic number 39, -ish, ying, yttriferous, thortveitite, xenotime, Feizi, holmium, atomic number 71, atomic number 68, veracious, samarskite and 21 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for samarium.
oroboros Sm Dec 1, 2007