chrysotile
noun
chrys·o·tile ˈkri-sə-ˌtī(-ə)l 
: a mineral consisting of a fibrous silky variety of serpentine and constituting a common form and principal source of asbestos
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web In Lowell, Vermont, for instance, stands a pile of tailings hundreds of feet tall, from what was once the United States’ largest chrysotile asbestos mine. 
Eliza Griswold, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2022 The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed to ban chrysotile asbestos, the most common form of the toxic mineral still used in the United States. Anna Phillips, Anchorage Daily News, 5 Apr. 2022 Most consumer products that historically contained chrysotile asbestos have been discontinued. CBS News, 5 Apr. 2022 Blue water now fills the Jeffrey Mine, where workers mined tons of chrysotile asbestos, providing crucial material for fire insulation, including equipment for soldiers of two world wars. Marie Fazio New York Times, Star Tribune, 21 Oct. 2020 The town was built up around the massive Jeffrey Mine, once the largest opencast chrysotile asbestos mine in the world. Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2020 Diamond mines aren’t the only places where such studies are underway; another is the Woodsreef chrysotile mine in New South Wales in Australia. Robert F. Service, Science | AAAS, 3 Sep. 2020 Other teams have shown that the carbonates can also trap hazardous residual asbestos fibers in chrysotile mine tailings. Robert F. Service, Science | AAAS, 3 Sep. 2020 Dorothy is awoken from her sleep in a poppy field by falling snow—actually industrial-grade chrysotile, commonly known as asbestos, and highly carcinogenic. The Economist, 12 Dec. 2019 See More
Eliza Griswold, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2022 The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed to ban chrysotile asbestos, the most common form of the toxic mineral still used in the United States. Anna Phillips, Anchorage Daily News, 5 Apr. 2022 Most consumer products that historically contained chrysotile asbestos have been discontinued. CBS News, 5 Apr. 2022 Blue water now fills the Jeffrey Mine, where workers mined tons of chrysotile asbestos, providing crucial material for fire insulation, including equipment for soldiers of two world wars. Marie Fazio New York Times, Star Tribune, 21 Oct. 2020 The town was built up around the massive Jeffrey Mine, once the largest opencast chrysotile asbestos mine in the world. Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2020 Diamond mines aren’t the only places where such studies are underway; another is the Woodsreef chrysotile mine in New South Wales in Australia. Robert F. Service, Science | AAAS, 3 Sep. 2020 Other teams have shown that the carbonates can also trap hazardous residual asbestos fibers in chrysotile mine tailings. Robert F. Service, Science | AAAS, 3 Sep. 2020 Dorothy is awoken from her sleep in a poppy field by falling snow—actually industrial-grade chrysotile, commonly known as asbestos, and highly carcinogenic. The Economist, 12 Dec. 2019 See More Word History
Etymology
borrowed from German Chrysotil, from chryso- chryso- + Greek -til-, taken to mean "fiber," base of tíllein "to pluck, pick," of uncertain origin
Note: Term introduced by the German mineralogist Franz von Kobell (1803-82) in "Ueber den Spadaït, eine neue Mineralspecies, und über den Wollastonit von Capo di bove," Journal für praktische Chemie, Band 30 (1843), p. 469. Kobell cites chrysós "Gold" and tílos "Faser" ("fiber") as sources, but a noun tílos only exists in ancient Greek as a plural tíloi "the fine hair of the eyebrows."
First Known Use
1850, in the meaning defined above
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