white lead
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
In the sense of tin, calque of Latin plumbum album (“tin”, literally “white lead”) already used before our era, as well as plumbum candidum (“tin”, literally “white-shining lead”) and Arabic رَصَاص أَبْيَض (raṣāṣ ʔabyaḍ, “tin”, literally “white lead”), distinguished from plumbum nigrum (“lead”, literally “black lead”) / رَصَاص أَسْوَد (raṣāṣ ʔaswad, “lead”, literally “black lead”), as tin and lead were improperly distinguished before modernity.
Noun edit
- (obsolete) tin, golden marcasite
- 1671, John Webster, Metallographia: Or, an history of metals., London, page 271:
- It is not amiſs here to give the differences betwixt white Lead, or Tin, Biſmuth, Tin-glaſs, or aſh-coloured Lead, and this common Lead, which they call black Lead;
- A basic lead carbonate formerly widely used for a white pigment in paint.
- Synonyms: lead white, flake white, silver white, slate white, Berlin white, Cremnitz white/Kremnitz white, Crems white/Krems white, Nottingham white, Vienna white
- 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 40:
- The beginning of a new episode of work for Bradly was an agitated niggling over six-by-four squares of cardboard coated with size and white lead, prepared by himself to save an experimental waste of canvas.
Coordinate terms edit
- red lead (another lead mineral used as a pigment)
- titanium dioxide, zinc oxide (other mineral sources of white pigment)
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
lead carbonate or the paint thereof
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