Wiktionary
n. (context inorganic compound English) The potassium salt of hydrocyanic acid, KCN; the colourless crystals are soluble in water, and it is extremely poisonous, and is used in electroplating, the extraction of gold and silver from their ores, and in photography.
WordNet
n. a poisonous salt (KCN) used in electroplating and in photography
Wikipedia
Potassium cyanide is a compound with the formula K CN. This colorless crystalline salt, similar in appearance to sugar, is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include jewelry for chemical gilding and buffing.
Potassium cyanide is highly toxic. The moist solid emits small amounts of hydrogen cyanide due to hydrolysis, which smells like bitter almonds. Not everyone, however, can smell this; the ability to do so is a genetic trait.
The taste of potassium cyanide has been described as acrid with a burning sensation on the tongue. An Indian man who committed suicide left a hastily scrawled note describing the taste of the fatal toxin, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. "Doctors, potassium cyanide. I have tasted it. It burns the tongue and tastes acrid," he wrote, according to the paper.
Usage examples of "potassium cyanide".
The doctor said it was some kind of acid, and it said in the paper potassium cyanide.
What we must do, they suggest, is prepare missiles loaded with poisons of various sorts, including potassium cyanide although that's so volatile we'd have to score a direct hit, and attempt to establish where the monster moved his headquarters to after we wrecked City Hall.
Certainly the potassium cyanide powder sitting nearby was dangerous –.
Emil Hatch uses potassium cyanide in his work with metals and plating, and there is a large jar of it on a cupboard shelf in the workshop one floor below, and there is a stair from Bottweill's office to the workroom.
If this poisoner is going to be exposed by such activities as investigation of sales of potassium cyanide or of sources of it available to these people, it is up to Mr Cramer and his twenty thousand men.
But don't get too worried, there's a sodium cyanide and a potassium cyanide.
Time had been when an ax was the only euthanasiast but now, thanks to Parolando's technology, the work was done with a potassium cyanide pill.
Each either administered to himself, or was admin-istered, a massive dose of instantaneously fatal poison, which I suspect to be potassium cyanide, within the five to ten sec-onds before they died.
There's a choice of fatal nerve-gases including the old standby, potassium cyanide, which is a thirty-second killer provided you get it into the target's nose or mouth and not to be disregarded merely because it's been around for a while.