amianthus

amianthus

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀμίαντος (amíantos, “undefiled”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + μιαίνω (miaínō, “I defile”).

Noun

amianthus (usually uncountable, plural amianthuses)

1. A type of asbestos with long, soft, thin fibers.
   • 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, I:

     the Microscope can afford us hundreds of Instances of Points many thousand times sharper: such as […] the ends of the stiriæ or small parallelipipeds of Amianthus […]

Translations

a type of asbestos with long, soft, thin fibers

Polish: amiant (pl) m Portuguese: amianto (pt) m Spanish: amianto m

Further reading

• David Barthelmy (1997–2023), “Amianthus”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
• “amianthus”, in Mindat.org‎, Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2023.