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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Praseodymium

Praseodymium \Pra`se*o*dym"i*um\, n. [Praseo- + didymium.] (Chem.) An elementary substance, one of the constituents of didymium; -- so called from the green color of its salts. Symbol Ps. Atomic weight 143.6.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
praseodymium

rare metallic element, 1885, coined in Modern Latin by discoverer Carl Auer von Welsbach (1858-1929) from Greek prasios "leek-green" (from prason "leek") + didymos "double," the name given to an earth in 1840, so called because it was a "twin" to lanthana. When didymia was further analyzed in the 1880s, it was found to have several components, one of which was characterized by green salts and named accordingly, with the elemental suffix -ium.

Wiktionary
praseodymium

n. A metallic chemical element (''symbol'' Pr) with an atomic number of 59.

WordNet
praseodymium

n. a soft yellowish-white trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group; can be recovered from bastnasite or monazite by an ion-exchange process [syn: Pr, atomic number 59]

Wikipedia
Praseodymium

Praseodymium is a chemical element with symbol Pr and atomic number 59. Praseodymium is a soft, silvery, malleable and ductile metal in the lanthanide group. It is valued for its magnetic, electrical, chemical, and optical properties. It is too reactive to be found in native form, and when artificially prepared, it slowly develops a green oxide coating.

The element was named for the color of its primary oxide. In 1841, Swedish chemist Carl Gustav Mosander extracted a rare earth oxide residue he called " didymium" from a residue he called "lanthana", in turn separated from cerium salts. In 1885, the Austrian chemist Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach separated didymium into two salts of different colors, which he named praseodymium and neodymium. The name praseodymium comes from the Greek prasinos (πράσινος), meaning "green", and didymos (δίδυμος), "twin".

Like most rare earth elements, praseodymium most readily forms trivalent Pr(III) ions. These are yellow-green in water solution, and various shades of yellow-green when incorporated into glasses. Many of praseodymium's industrial uses involve its use to filter yellow light from light sources.

Usage examples of "praseodymium".

I can go up to two hundred fifty millimeters using the activated vanadium pentasulphide in the praseodymium breakdown.

It directs five-point-three teratogauss of magnetic force on that tiny little speck of praseodymium there.

The ghosts of a thousand potential worlds radiated out from the speck of praseodymium as it plunged down through absolute zero and into the nameless realms beyond.

Tin barely makes it into the top fifty, eclipsed by such relative obscurities as praseodymium, samarium, gadolinium, and dysprosium.

An Austrian named Karl von Welsbach proved it to be a blend of two separate elements, praseodymium and neodymium.

Other elements are less familiar - hafnium, erbium, dysprosium and praseodymium, say, which we do not much bump into in everyday life.

Such stellar nuclear reactions do not readily generate erbium, hafnium, dysprosium, praseodymium or yttrium, but rather the elements we know in everyday life, elements returned to the interstellar gas, where they are swept up in a subsequent generation of cloud collapse and star and planet formation.