Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A light to dark green carbonate mineral, Cu2CO3(OH)2, used as a source of copper and for ornamental purposes.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A basic carbonate of copper having a beautiful green color, hence commonly called the green carbonate of Copper.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Min.) Native hydrous carbonate of copper, usually occurring in green mammillary masses with concentric fibrous structure.
  • noun See Emerald green, under Green, n.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mineralogy A bright green mineral, a basic copper carbonate, Cu2CO3(OH)2; one of the principal ores of copper.
  • noun A mild green colour, like that of the mineral.
  • adjective From olive-taupe to that of a mild to deeply-rich -- at times seemingly translucent -- green colour, like that of the mineral which is present on oxidized copper.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a green or blue mineral used as an ore of copper and for making ornamental objects

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English melochite, from Latin molochītes, from Greek molokhītis, from malakhē, molokhē, mallow, of Semitic origin; see mlḥ in Semitic roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin molochitis, from Ancient Greek μαλαχή (malakhe, "[leaf of the ... ] mallow plant"). Or, (Can we verify(+) this etymology?) could be from Hebrew מלאך (mal'ach) [ "angel" or "messenger of God" ], or, perhaps hailing from another Ancient Greek term, μαλαχ- [ "fingers" ].

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