white lead
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.03 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
1
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A basic lead carbonate, particularly (historical) as once widely used for white paint, whitening cosmetics, and early medicine.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "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;"
- "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."
- "Such eminent and renowned scientists as Fourcroy, Berthollet and Vauquelin all enthusiastically supported zinc white, the defects of which "are so slight compared to the disadvantages of using white lead, that its adoption cannot be reasonably refused.""
Etymology
In the tin sense, a calque of Latin plumbum album (literally “white lead”), a term already in use before our era, for tin and lead were not yet properly distinguished prior to modern times. Compare Latin plumbum candidum (literally “shining-white lead”) and Arabic رَصَاص أَبْيَض (raṣāṣ ʔabyaḍ, “white lead”), both of which were also used to mean “tin” and to distinguish it from lead proper, called “black lead” (plumbum nigrum; رَصَاص أَسْوَد (raṣāṣ ʔaswad)) in those ancient tongues.
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Medicine.