hydrophane

English

Etymology

From hydro- (water) +‎ -phane (“appearing”).

Noun

hydrophane (countable and uncountable, plural hydrophanes)

1. (mineralogy) A semitranslucent variety of opal that becomes translucent or transparent on immersion in water.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “hydrophane”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Further reading

• David Barthelmy (1997–2024) “Hydrophane”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
• “hydrophane”, in Mindat.org‎^[1], Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2024.