cyanide

cyanide

See also: Cyanide

English

Etymology

cyan- +‎ -ide

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪənaɪd/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪd

Noun

cyanide (countable and uncountable, plural cyanides)

1. (chemistry, countable) Any compound containing the -C≡N group or the CN⁻ anion.
2. (uncountable) Sodium or potassium cyanide, used in the extraction of gold and silver or as a poison.
   • 1959, Tom Lehrer (lyrics and music), “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”:

     The birdies all try an' hide / But they still go for peanuts / When coated with cyanide

   • 1988 July, Michael A. Silva, “Cyanide Heap Leaching in California”, in California Geology‎, volume 41, number 7, page 147:

     Two doctors and a metallurgist from Scotland patented a process for dissolving gold with cyanide in 1887 and patented the recovery of gold from solution using finely divided zinc (zinc precipitation) the following year. […]
     The first commercial processing plant to use cyanide in the milling circuit was constructed at the Crown mine at Karangahake, New Zealand in 1889.

   • 2000, Sean Dolan, Everything You Need to Know About Cults‎, New York: The Rosen Publishing Groups, Inc., →ISBN, page 15:

     The vast majority of the victims, on Jones’s orders, had drunk a fruit punch mixture laced with cyanide, a deadly poison. Adults had fed the poisoned liquid to the children, including infants.

3. (uncountable) Hydrogen cyanide, or cyanide gas, a poisonous gas.

Derived terms

• bromobenzyl cyanide
• carbonyl cyanide
• cyanide process
• ferricyanide
• ferrocyanide
• methyl cyanide
• vinyl cyanide

 

Translations

chemistry: any compound containing the CN group

Belarusian: цыяні́д m (cyjaníd) Bulgarian: цианид m (cianid) Catalan: cianur m Chinese: Mandarin: 氰化物 (zh) (qínghuàwù) Czech: kyanid m Danish: cyanid (da) Dutch: cyanide (nl) n Esperanto: cianido Finnish: syanidi (fi), syaaniyhdiste French: cyanure (fr) m German: Zyanid (de) n Hebrew: ציאניד‎ (he) m (tzianyd) Hindi: श्यामिद (śyāmid) Hungarian: cianid Ido: cianido (io) Indonesian: sianida (id) Italian: cianuro (it) m Japanese: 青酸塩 (せいさんえん, seisan'en) Macedonian: цијанид m (cijanid) Maori: haeanate Persian: سیانور‎ (fa) (siyânur) Polish: cyjanek (pl) m Portuguese: cianeto (pt) m, cianureto m Romanian: cianura (ro) f Russian: циани́д (ru) m (cianíd) Spanish: cianuro (es) m, prusiato (es) m Swedish: cyanid (sv) Tagalog: siyanuro Turkish: siyanür (tr) Ukrainian: ціані́д (uk) m (cianíd)

potassium cyanide — see potassium cyanide

hydrogen cyanide — see hydrogen cyanide

Verb

cyanide (third-person singular simple present cyanides, present participle cyaniding, simple past and past participle cyanided)

1. (transitive) To treat or poison with cyanide.

See also

• hydrocyanic acid
• Zyklon B
• Nevada gas (slang)

Anagrams

• cyaneid

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Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed. Equivalent to cyaan +‎ -ide. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌsi.aːˈni.də/
• Hyphenation: cy‧a‧ni‧de
• Rhymes: -i.də

Noun

cyanide n (uncountable)

1. cyanide (C≡N-based compound)