nickel

Etymology

It is borrowed from Swedish nickel, the name given to the metal by the mineralogist Axel von Cronstedt in 1754,^[2][3][4] shortened from kopparnickel, the copper-coloured ore from which he had first obtained it in 1751.^[2][3] That name half-translates German Kupfernickel, the miners' word, from Kupfer (“copper”) and Nickel (“goblin, demon, rascal”),^[5][6][7] a pet form of the name Nikolaus.^[3][8][6] The usual explanation is that the ore looked like copper but yielded none.^[9][7][3] Etymonline notes that the earliest German uses of the second element are for a fool or a contemptible person rather than a goblin.^[3] Grimm connected it with the source of nixie, and later German scholars with St Nicholas.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The metal: 1755, in the Gentleman's Magazine.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

In 1857 the United States replaced its large copper cents with one-cent coins made partly of nickel, and the word passed to them; from 1883 it named the five-cent piece.^[3][2] As an adjective it meant "made of nickel" from 1822 and "costing a nickel" from 1874,^[2] and American slang used it for anything cheap or second-rate ("nickel novel", 1896).^[10] Later slang senses are five dollars (1926),^[10] a five-year prison sentence (1953, in William Burroughs's Junkie) and five dollars' worth of a drug (1963).^[2] The verb "to plate with nickel" dates from 1875, and to nickel and dime "to treat stingily" from 1913.^[2]

Timeline

• 1754 – Cronstedt names the metal.^[2][3]
• 1755 – first English use.^[2][5]
• 1857 – a US coin partly of nickel.^[2][3]
• 1875 – verb, to plate with nickel.^[2]
• 1883 – the US five-cent piece.^[3]
• 1913 – to nickel and dime.^[2]
• 1953 – a five-year prison sentence (US slang).^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A hard silvery-white metallic chemical element, atomic number 28 (symbol Ni), used in alloys and for plating.
2. (North America) A five-cent coin.
3. (US slang) Five dollars; also a five-year prison sentence.

Verb

1. To coat or plate with nickel.

Word family

• nickel-plate
• ferronickel
• nicad
• cupronickel
• double-nickel

Related words

• niccolite
• copper
• cobalt
• pumpernickel
• kupfernickel

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com