silica

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin silica,^[2][3][4][5] from Latin silex (“flint, pebble, hard stone”),^{[2][3][4][6][7]} formed on the model of alumina and soda.^[2][8][9] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster connect the Latin word with shell;^[4][10] Klein calls it of uncertain origin.^[7] The OED compares French silice.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Silicon dioxide, a mineral that as quartz forms part of many rocks: 1801, in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica.^[6][2][4] Dictionary.com dates it to 1795–1805.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word was a chemists' name for the earth found in flint and quartz, and soon produced derivatives: silicate in 1811,^[4] and silicon, coined in 1817 by the British chemist Thomas Thomson for the element isolated from silica, after carbon.^[2] Hoad notes that silicon replaced an earlier silicium.^[12] Partridge lists silicosis, the lung disease, among its derivatives.^[13]

Timeline

• 1801 – silicon dioxide, in the Encyclopædia Britannica.^[6][2][4]
• 1811 – the derivative silicate.^[4]
• 1817 – the element silicon, named from silica.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The hard, insoluble dioxide of silicon, SiO₂, which occurs naturally as quartz, tridymite and cristobalite, in amorphous forms such as opal and flint, and in sand; it is used to make glass, ceramics and abrasives.^{[5][10][8][6]}
2. Short for silica glass.^[5]

Word family

• felsic
• siliciferous
• silicification
• silicify
• silicosis
• silicate
• siliceous
• silici-

Related words

• silex
• silicon

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul