Definitions

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

  • noun A bright white, soft, ductile metallic element found in several minerals, notably vanadinite and carnotite, having good structural strength and used in rust-resistant high-speed tools, as a carbon stabilizer in some steels, as a titanium-steel bonding agent, and as a catalyst. Atomic number 23; atomic weight 50.942; melting point 1,910°C; boiling point 3,407°C; specific gravity 6.0 (18.7°C); valence 2, 3, 4, 5. cross-reference: Periodic Table.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Metallic vanadium in a compact state has been obtained by fusion in an electric furnace. It has a gray color, is lustrous, and, as thus far observed, brittle, though perhaps this may be due to impurity of the metal; it is with difficulty freed from oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen.
  • noun Chemical symbol, V; atomic weight, 51.2. A metal first discovered by Del Rio, in 1801, in a lead ore from Mexico, and called by him erythronium, because its salts became red when heated with acids.

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

  • noun (Chem.) A rare element of the nitrogen-phosphorus group, found combined, in vanadates, in certain minerals, and reduced as an infusible, grayish-white metallic powder. It is intermediate between the metals and the non-metals, having both basic and acid properties. Symbol V (or Vd, rarely). Atomic weight 50.94 (C12=12.000).

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

  • noun A chemical element, (symbol V) with an atomic number of 23; it is a transition metal, used in the production of special steels.

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

  • noun a soft silvery white toxic metallic element used in steel alloys; it occurs in several complex minerals including carnotite and vanadinite

Etymologies

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

[From Old Norse Vanadīs, the goddess Freya; see wen- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Vanadis, a name of Freyja + -ium

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Examples

  • In the journal Science, researchers at the University of California-Irvine say they've manipulated a bacterial enzyme called vanadium nitrogenase that usually produces ammonia from nitrogen gas.

    chicagotribune.com - 2010

  • One promising flow battery type is called a vanadium redox battery, and the way it works sheds some light on why these batteries can last so long.

    Batteries That Go With The Flow 2010

  • As it happened, in addition to radium, carnotite rock also contained much larger quantities of a metal called vanadium, which proved to be a hardening agent when blended into steel.

    Yellow Dirt Judy Pasternak 2010

  • Swanwick called vanadium the most boring element, since all he could uncover about it is that it is essential to a chicken's diet.

    Archive 2005-09-01 Andrew 2005

  • Swanwick called vanadium the most boring element, since all he could uncover about it is that it is essential to a chicken's diet.

    Book Watch Andrew 2005

  • Henry Ford built a tough, light compact prototype he called the Model T in 1908, helped by a new invention known as vanadium steel that was three time tougher than ordinary steel.

    Executive Economics SHLOMO MAITAL 1994

  • Henry Ford built a tough, light compact prototype he called the Model T in 1908, helped by a new invention known as vanadium steel that was three time tougher than ordinary steel.

    Executive Economics SHLOMO MAITAL 1994

  • However, it is Vanadium's new use in the renewable energy field that is getting investors' attention, with Discover Magazine calling vanadium " The element that could change the world".

    Reuters: Press Release 2011

  • Minerals found in association with uranium, especially vanadium, which is used in hardening steel, sparked the first real rush in the 1930s; uranium for bombs and energy then followed in a stuttering pattern of boom and bust into the 1980s, when the nation's nuclear energy program mostly went into mothballs.

    NYT > Home Page By KIRK JOHNSON 2010

  • Minerals found in association with uranium, especially vanadium, which is used in hardening steel, sparked the first real rush in the 1930s; uranium for bombs and energy then followed in a stuttering pattern of boom and bust into the 1980s, when the nation's nuclear energy program mostly went into mothballs.

    NYT > Home Page By KIRK JOHNSON 2010

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  • V

    December 2, 2007