fluorinen.
/ˈflʊəriːn/, /ˈflɔːriːn/, U.S. /ˈflʊˌrin/, /ˈflɔˌrin/ Chemistry.
A pale yellow, gaseous chemical element of the halogen series, atomic no. 9. Symbol F.Fluorine occurs combined in various minerals, esp. fluorite (fluorspar). Fluorine gas is extremely reactive and toxic, causing dangerous burns, and was not isolated until 1886.
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the world > matter > chemistry > elements and compounds > metals > specific elements > fluorine > [noun]
fluorine1813
phthore1858
phthorine1858
1813 Sir H. Davy in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 103 278 It appears reasonable to conclude that there exists in the fluoric compounds a peculiar substance..it may be denominated fluorine, a name suggested to me by M. Ampère.
1866 H. E. Roscoe Lessons Elem. Chem. ii. 11 All the elements, with the single exception of fluorine, combine with oxygen to form oxides.
1887 Pharm. Jrnl. & Trans. 17 84/2 The isolation of fluorine, not previously obtained in the elementary condition, has possibly been recently effected in the electrolysis of hydrofluoric acid, by M. Moissan.
1931 Astounding Stories Dec. 302/2 It's unbreathable... Mostly fluorine. It would eat your lungs out like that!
1948 L. E. H. Whitby Nurses' Handbk. Hygiene (ed. 8) vi. 149 Deficiency of fluorine gives rise to dental caries during childhood.
1994 New Scientist 19 Mar. 19/1 PFCs..are manufactured from hydrocarbons by replacing all the hydrogen atoms bound to the carbon with fluorine and bromine.
2006 New Yorker 7 Aug. 55/1 An early step in all these processes is to combine natural uranium with fluorine to produce a compound called uranium hexafluoride.
Compounds
C1. General attributive.
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1815 New Ann. Reg. 1814 Lit. Select. & Retrospect 348/1 (title) An account of some new experiments on the fluorine compounds.
1831 T. Thomson Syst. Chem. (ed. 7) I. i. 92 We have oxygen salts, chlorine salts, bromine salts, iodine salts, and fluorine salts.
1881 Chem. News 30 Sept. 164/1 The general resemblance of fluorine compounds to the corresponding compounds of chlorine is manifest, and the two elements are usually classed together.
1940 G. H. J. Adlam & L. S. Price Higher School Certificate Inorg. Chem. (ed. 2) xlviii. 503 The gases produced are liquefied and fractionated, and fluorine monoxide is obtained as a liquid, boiling at −146.5° C.
1986 J. F. Gracey Meat Hygiene (ed. 8) xviii. 426/2 Fluorosis, or chronic fluorine poisoning, has occurred in cattle adjacent to factories producing acid phosphate from rock phosphate.
2001 J. H. Holloway in R. Catlow & S. Greenfield Cosmic Rays 89 Because the carbon chain of Teflon is surrounded by small non-polarizable fluorine atoms, the surface tends to ‘repel’ other materials and to be slippery.
C2. Designating a method of determining the relative age of organic remains by measuring the amount of fluorine that they have absorbed from surrounding groundwater, as fluorine dating, fluorine method, fluorine test, etc.
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1895 Amer. Naturalist 29 306 The possibility of the determination of the relative antiquity of human bones found in prehistoric graves has set the chemists and prehistoric anthropolgists [sic] to an investigation of the fluorine test.
1949 K. P. Oakley & M. F. A. Montagu in Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.): Geol. 1 ii. 29 The authors..independently reached similar conclusions with regard to the probable dating of the [Galley Hill] skeleton and..prepared a joint report on their findings. One author (K.P.O.) has prepared the introductory sections, the account of the geology, and of the fluorine dating.
1959 J. D. Clark Prehist. Southern Afr. iv. 83 Fluorine and uranium tests have shown that the skull fragments are of the same age as the faunal remains found with them.
1968 R. G. West Pleistocene Geol. & Biol. ix. 160 The fluorine method is useful for the relative dating of animal skeletal remains found in sand and gravel.
2002 I. Sansom Truth about Babies 292 Pathologists sometimes use a method known as fluorine dating.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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