9. Fluorum (Fluorine) - Elementymology & Elements Multidict

Elementymology & Elements Multidict

This site comprises 120 pages of text and photos, one for each element, and several pages for access. – For captions or explanatory texts move your mouse over illustrations, links etc.

9
Fluorum Fluorine
Fluor – Fluor – Fluor – Flúor – フッ素 – Фтор – 氟
F
Multilingual dictionary

Indo-European
Fluorum Latin

— Germanic
Fluoor Afrikaans
Fluor Danish
Fluor German
Fluorine English
Flúr Faroese
Fluor Frisian (West)
Flúr Icelandic
Fluor Luxembourgish
Fluor Dutch
Fluor Norwegian
Fluor Swedish

— Italic
Fluor Aragonese
Fluoru Aromanian
Flúor Asturian
Fluor Catalan
Flúor Spanish
Fluor French
Fluôr Friulian
Flúor Galician
Fluoro Italian
Flüòor Lombard
Fluòr Occitan
Flúor Portuguese
Fluor Romanian - Moldovan

— Slavic
Флуор [Fluor] Bulgarian
Fluor Bosnian
Фтор [ftor] Belarusian
Fluor Czech
Fluor Croatian
Fluòr Kashubian
Флуор [Fluor] Macedonian
Fluor Polish
Фтор [Ftor] Russian
Fluór Slovak
Fluor Slovenian
Флуор [Fluor] Serbian
Фтор [ftor] Ukrainian

— Baltic
Fluoras Lithuanian
Fluors Latvian
Fluors Samogitian

— Celtic
Fluor Breton
Fflworin Welsh
Fluairín Gaelic (Irish)
Fluairin Gaelic (Scottish)
Fluoreen Gaelic (Manx)
Fluryn Cornish

— Other Indo-European
Φθοριο [fthorio] Greek
Ֆտոր [ftor] Armenian
Fluor[i] Albanian

— Indo-Iranian/Iranian
Fluor Kurdish
Фтор [ftor] Ossetian
Фтор [Ftor] Tajik

— Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan
ফ্লুরিন [phlurina] Bengali
فلوئور [flwywr] Persian
ફ્લોરિનનો [phlorinano] Gujarati
फ्लोरीन [phlorīna] Hindi

Finno-Ugric
Fluor Estonian
Fluori Finnish
Fluor Hungarian
Фтор [Ftor] Komi
Фтор [Ftor] Mari
Фтора [ftora] Moksha
Fluor Võro

Altaic
Flüor Azerbaijani
Фтор [Ftor] Chuvash
Фтор [ftor] Kazakh
Фтор [Ftor] Kyrgyz
Фтор [ftor] Mongolian
Fluor Turkish
فىتور [fitor] Uyghur
Ftor Uzbek

Other (Europe)
Fluoroa Basque
ფთორი [p't'ori] Georgian

Afro-Asiatic
فلور [filūrīn] Arabic
פלואור [flu'or] Hebrew
Fluorin, ²Fluworu Maltese

Sino-Tibetan
Fuk (氟) Hakka
フッ素 [fusso] Japanese
플루오르 [peullu'oreu] Korean
ฟลูออรีน [flūorīn] Thai
Flo Vietnamese
[fu2 / fat7] Chinese

Malayo-Polynesian
Flúor Cebuano
Fluor Indonesian
Hau kōwhai Māori
Fluorin, ²Flor Malay

Other Asiatic
ഫ്ലൂറിന്‍ [phlūṟinam] Malayalam
புளோரின் [puļōriṉ] Tamil

Africa
Folina Lingala
Flourine Sesotho
Florini Swahili

North-America
Flúor Nahuatl

South-America
Flur Quechua

Creole
Fluorimi Sranan Tongo

Artificial
Fluoro Esperanto

New names
Floron Atomic Elements
Teethium Dorseyville
memory peg

Pale yellow gas with a supposedly bleach-like odor
melting point -220 °C; -363 °F
boiling point -188 °C; -307 °F
density 0.0017 g/cc; 0.11 pounds/cubic foot
1886 Ferdinand-Frédéric-Henri Moissan, France
fluere = to flow, to stream (Latin)
named by Sir Humphry Davy

History & Etymology

Georgius Agricola Georgius Agricola (Georg Bauer, of Chemnitz, 1494-1555), described in his De re metallica (1556), the first detailed description of how to prepare metals from ores, how the admixture of fluxes (lapides igni liquescentes [fluores] = stones which become liquid in fire [flows]) facilitates the smelting of ores. Fluxes work as a solvent for ores that would otherwise need much more heat to become liquid. The aid, called Flußspat (fluorspar, CaF2) by the German miners, had for the first time been mentioned by Basilius Valentinus towards the end of the 15th century. It was more extensively described in one of Agricola's early works in 1530. Fluorspar occurs in nature in several beautifully colored varieties. The violet variety (fluores colore violaceo) looks like amethyst, the green one resembles emerald and so these varieties were occasionally sold instead of the gems (hence the name "false amethyst" or "false emerald" for fluorspar).

In 1670 the Nuremberg glassworker, Heinrich Schwanhard, found that glass was etched when exposed fluorspar treated with acid.

The Swedish apothecary Carl Wilhelm Scheele started, in 1771, a systematic investigation to find out the chemical nature of fluorspar and the details of its reaction with acids. He found an acid, which he called Flußspatsäure (acid of fluorspar, fluoric acid). Even though this name clearly reminds us today of the element fluorine bound in it, nothing was known by the time about the chemical nature of this acid, the name being merely derived from the latin term "fluores" for fluorspar.

Many later investigators, including Ampère, Davy, Gay-Lussac, Lavoisier, and Thénard, experimented with hydrofluoric acid, some experiments ending in tragedy. Several chemists lost their lives, others lived shortened lives, and many experienced great pain as a result of their attempts to isolate the element. The element was finally isolated in 1886 by Ferdinand-Frédéric-Henri Moissan (1852-1907) after nearly 74 years of continuous effort.

André Ampère suggested the name Phtor (Greek for destructive) because this seemed to be more appropriate because of the destructive properties of its compounds. This name was accepted only in the eastern hemisphere (see list to the left). Davy disagreed with this name and proposed fluor (which was already in 1813 used for "mineral containing fluorine,") from the Latin fluere = to flow, to stream.

Fluorspar

Chemistianity 1873
BTGEN
FLUORINE, combined, is the caustic for Glass;
A metalloid said to be gaseous and colourless,
With keenly susceptible chemical love
Towards Metals and Metalloid Silicon.
As yet it combines not with Oxygen,
Though it will readily with Hydrogen.
J. Carrington Sellars, Chemistianity, 1873, p. 66-67
Further reading
  • The discovery of fluoride and fluorine (with many references).
  • Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 727-742.

Sources Index of Persons Index of Alleged Elements