Definitions

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

  • noun A greenish to pinkish or lilac mineral, LiAlSi2O6, that is used as a source of lithium and in transparent varieties as a gemstone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A silicate of aluminium and lithium, occurring usually in flattened prismatic crystals, near pyroxene in form, also in cleavable masses.

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

  • noun (Min.) A mineral of a white to yellowish, purplish, or emerald-green color, occurring in prismatic crystals, often of great size. It is a silicate of alumina and lithia. See hiddenite.

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

  • noun mineralogy A greenish, yellowish or pinkish mineral, a lithium pyroxene (LiAl(SiO3)2) that is an ore of lithium, and a gemstone

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

  • noun a pyroxene mineral consisting of lithium aluminum silicate; a source of lithium

Etymologies

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

[French spodumène, from German Spodumen, from Greek spodoumenos, present participle of spodousthai, to be burned to ashes, from spodos, wood ashes (because the mineral becomes ash gray when exposed to air).]

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Examples

  • These sources are less expensive to mine than from rock such as spodumene, petalite, and other lithium-bearing minerals.

    Lithium 2009

  • I used shiny white glaze on one and kind of a stoneware glaze (spodumene) on the other.

    Kater’s Art » Blog Archive » Fountain 2010

  • It isn't clear from the USGS report whether the lithium in Afghanistan is tied up in the form of spodumene or available as a brine from a salt lake.

    Made in Afghanistan Venkat's Energy Blog 2010

  • I used shiny white glaze on one and kind of a stoneware glaze spodumene on the other.

    Kater’s Art » Blog Archive » Fountain 2010

  • It's been known for a long time that Afghanistan has a lot of spodumene, but it's much more expensive and difficult to process into a useable precursor for lithium battery materials than are the brines.

    Made in Afghanistan Venkat's Energy Blog 2010

  • The largest spodumene crystal ever found was found in a pegmatite in South Dakota.

    Lithium 2009

  • Commercial quantities of spodumene are in a special igneous rock deposit that geologists call a pegmatite.

    Lithium 2009

  • Petalite is found in the minerals spodumene, lepidolite mica, and amblygonite.

    Lithium 2009

  • Some lithium is recovered from the mineral spodumene.

    Lithium 2009

  • Pegmatite veins, mostly, in association with the true lithium minerals such as spodumene and—

    Firestorm L.A Graf 2000

Comments

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  • A greenish to pinkish or lilac mineral, LiAlSi2O6, used as a source of lithium and in transparent varieties as a gemstone.

    (from French spodumène, from German Spodumen, from Greek spodoumenos, present participle of spodousthai, to be burned to ashes, from spodos, wood ashes (because the mineral becomes ash gray when exposed to air).

    Source:

    December 31, 2008

  • This is a weird word both to look at and say.

    January 29, 2021