noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Mercury (chemical element). uncountable

   "Hydrargyrum, Quick-ſilver, a Mineral, of a ſtrange piercing Quality, ſo as to eat thro' Gold, Silver, &c."

2. 2
   a heavy silvery toxic univalent and bivalent metallic element; the only metal that is liquid at ordinary temperatures wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

mercuryquicksilvermercuryatomic number 80azothazoth

Example

More examples

"Hydrargyrum, Quick-ſilver, a Mineral, of a ſtrange piercing Quality, ſo as to eat thro' Gold, Silver, &c."

Etymology

From New Latin hydrargyrum (“mercury”). By surface analysis, hydr- + argyr- + -um.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.