Definitions

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

  • noun A yellow lead oxide, PbO, used in storage batteries and glass and as a pigment.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The yellow or reddish protoxid of lead (PbO) partially fused.

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

  • noun (Chem.) Lead monoxide; a yellowish red substance, obtained as an amorphous powder, or crystallized in fine scales, by heating lead moderately in a current of air or by calcining lead nitrate or carbonate. It is used in making flint glass, in glazing earthenware, in making red lead or minium, etc. Called also massicot.

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

  • noun Lead monoxide (PbO) a toxic solid formed from the oxidisation of lead in air, and used as a pigment

Etymologies

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

[Middle English litarge, from Old French, alteration of litargire, from Latin lithargyrus, from Greek litharguros : lithos, stone + arguros, silver (from the production of litharge as a byproduct of the extraction of silver from argentiferous galena); see arg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French litarge, from Latin lithargyrus, from Ancient Greek λιθαργυρος, from λίθος, stone + αργυρός silver

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Examples

  • The ore was melted and converted into ingots, the silver separated and refined, and litharge, red lead and shot manufactured.

    "Hike" to Ballycorus Chimney Dr. Eugene F.M. O'Loughlin 2008

  • This man had previously bought up all the litharge from the apothecaries of Sedan and got it resold after mixing it with a few ounces of gold.

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • When he had consumed all the litharge in Sedan he made no more gold, nor ever more saw his philosopher or his forty thousand crowns.

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • Send to the first apothecary of your town for some litharge; throw into it one grain of the red powder which

    A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

  • Having fomented with plenty of hot water, boil in the water certain of the fragrant medicines, add pounded tamarisk, roasted litharge and galls, and pour on them white wine, and oil, and the grease of a goose, pounding all together.

    On Hemorrhoids 2007

  • In particular, it seemed the perfect alternative to lead monoxide (PbO, litharge), the white pigment in those "lead-based" paints you hear about.

    Analog Science Fiction and Fact 2005

  • In the latter experiment also, the culot came away without the litharge, which almost always contains traces of silver and antimony.

    The Land of Midian 2003

  • The latter, however, contains a remnant of litharge, possibly showing that the old Egyptians worked the silver, which may have been supplied by the Colorado quartz.

    The Land of Midian 2003

  • So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while others are not and merely seem to be such to our sense; e.g. things made of litharge and tin seem to be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look golden.

    On Sophistical Refutations 2002

  • So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while others are not and merely seem to be such to our sense; e.g. things made of litharge and tin seem to be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look golden.

    On Sophistical Refutations 2002

Comments

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  • litharge brillant stone literally: a lead ore which stores charges (PbO) and is a element of paint pigments

    January 14, 2007

  • "The 4.4 ounces (126 grams) of gold dust probably had medicinal uses, as did a block of litharge, a lead oxide added to skin ointments to cure cuts and blemishes."

    --Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2012), 154

    January 3, 2017