Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A brown to colorless mineral, ZrSiO4, which is heated, cut, and polished to form a brilliant blue-white gem.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A mineral occurring in tetragonal crystals of adamantine luster and yellowish to brownish or reddish color: its hardness is somewhat greater than that of quartz. The reddish-orange variety is sometimes called
hyacinth in jewelry. The colorless, yellowish, or smoky zircon of Ceylon is there calledjargon . Zircon consists of the oxids of silicon and zirconium (SiO2ZrO2), and is usually regarded as a silicate of zirconium, though sometimes classed with the oxids of titanium (rutile) and tin (cassiterite), which have a similar form. Seezirconium .
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable A mineral occurring in tetragonal crystals, usually of a brown or grey colour and consisting of silica and zirconia.
- n. countable A crystal of zircon, sometimes used as a false gemstone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Min.) A mineral consisting predominantly of zirconium silicate (Zr2SiO4) occurring in tetragonal crystals, usually of a brown or gray color. It consists of silica and zirconia. A red variety, used as a gem, is called hyacinth. Colorless, pale-yellow or smoky-brown varieties from Ceylon are called jargon.
- n. an imitation gemstone made of cubic zirconia.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a common mineral occurring in small crystals; chief source of zirconium; used as a refractory when opaque and as a gem when transparent
Etymologies
- From German Zirkon or French zircone, from Arabic زرقون (zarqūn, "cinnabar, bright red"), from Persian زرگون (zargun) / زریون (zaryun), from Middle Persian 𐭦𐭫𐭢𐭥𐭭 (zargōn). (Wiktionary)
- German Zirkon, from Arabic siriqun, from Greek surikon, from Persian āzargūn, fire color : āzar, fire (from Middle Persian ādur, from Old Persian *ātar, āç-, in Āçiyādiya, fire-worship month) + -gūn, color (from Middle Persian; akin to Avestan gaonəm, hair, complexion (second sense unattested)). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The sands are called zircon sands because they contain sand-sized mineral zircon grains.”
“Red zircon, which is rare, is properly called "_hyacinth_.”
A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public
“This double nitrate has a specific gravity of 4.7963, therefore such a stone as zircon, which is the heaviest known, will float in it.”
“It is probably identical with the lighure of (Exodus 28: 19) The Jacinth or hyacinth is a red variety of zircon, which is found in square prisms of a white, gray, red, reddish-brown, yellow or pale-green color.”
“In general the mineral is recovered on a commercial scale only from placers, where it has been concentrated along with other dense, insoluble minerals such as zircon, garnet, ilmenite, and sometimes gold.”
“Iluka rose 11% after it said it expects strong price increases from its customers for titanium dioxide and zircon.”
“Ad-venture capitalist, explorer and discoverer of heaps of gold, copper, oil, timber and rare earths like zircon, Joshua Fink, 32, has traveled on cold war Russian helicopters to coal mines in Mongolia, gone a mile down in South African gold mines and traveled to copper mines in the middle of the jungle in the Congo.”
“Mary K.V. Hodges, Paul Karl Link, C. Mark Fanning, 2009, The Pliocene Lost River found to west: Detrital zircon evidence of drainage disruption along a subsiding hotspot track”
“You may afford less zircon-encrusted hummers thinking that way, but you will be cooler.”
hughstimson.org » Blog Archive » No Actually New Janelle Monae
“He pointed at me with a single long finger bearing a long ring of yellow zircon.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘zircon’.
-
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 11184 more...
-
Of Arabic Origin
Arabic loanwords in English are words acquired directly from Arabic or else indirectly by passing from Arabic into other languages and then into English. Most entered one or more of the Romance lan...
admiral, adobe, albatross, alchemy, alcohol, alcove, alembic, alfalfa, algebra, algorism, algorithm, alidade and 181 more...
-
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...
-
Just 'cause I like 'em, Z
zooagglutinin, zymurgy, zouave, zeal, zircon, zydeco, zenith, ziggurat, zoetrope, zany, zounds, zigzag and 108 more...
-
george's list
deamy, curmudgeon, κάλκουλος, οινίνετος, φαφάνα, τηλ�?δατος, sofa, dinamoe, zircon, tweezer, μπο�?θι, beano and 18 more...
-
zzzzz...
zingy, zesty words
zephyr, xylophone, zebra, xenobiologist, zed, zaftig, zenith, zero, zilch, zipper, zeppo, zeppelin and 24 more...
-
the dressing room - jewelry box
crown, gilt, sceptre, circlet, diadem, tiara, alabaster, gold, cat's eye, citrine, zircon, hematite and 47 more...
-
lapidary
agate, jasper, garnet, ruby, sapphire, onyx, topaz, turquoise, carnelian, jade, diamond, amethyst and 27 more...
-
persian words in english
words originally derived from persian that have made it to english sometimes with several stops in intermediate languages
balcony, algorithm, arsenic, aubergine, azure, baghdad, beige, bombast, borax, bronze, caftan, calabash and 79 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for zircon.
gangerh Aircon to Zircon Aug 30, 2009
fbharjo from Persian zargun زرگون, "gold-colored" Aug 30, 2009