Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Magnesium   Listen
noun
Magnesium  n.  (Chem.) A light silver-white metallic element of atomic number 12, malleable and ductile, quite permanent in dry air but tarnishing in moist air. It burns, forming (the oxide) magnesia, with the production of a blinding light (the so-called magnesium light) which is used in signaling, in pyrotechny, or in photography where a strong actinic illuminant is required. Its compounds occur abundantly, as in dolomite, talc, meerschaum, etc. Symbol Mg. Atomic weight, 24.305. Specific gravity, 1.75.
Magnesium sulphate. (Chem.) Same as Epsom salts.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Magnesium" Quotes from Famous Books



... then some gleam of a star in the water under foot. Sometimes as they marched they would see the starshells, going up and bursting like rockets, and coming down With a wavering slow settling motion, as white and bright as burning magnesium wire, shedding a kind of dust of light upon the trench and making the blackness intense when they went out. These lights, the glimmer in the sky from the enemy's guns, and now and then the flash of a shell, were the things seen by most of our men on their ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield

... you have learned beyond doubt that many of the commonest elements of the earth's crust exist also in other worlds, and, what is of great significance, that the materials most closely connected with living organisms on the earth, such as hydrogen, sodium, magnesium, and iron, are the very ones which are found most widely diffused among the stars. I think I am not wrong in assuming that you are somewhat acquainted with the spectroscope ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... the contrary. There is abundance of illumination; and by a pretty thought, each side illuminates the other. We perform our nocturnal tasks, in front of and behind the firing trench, amid a perfect hail of star-shells and magnesium lights, topped up at times by a searchlight—all supplied by our obliging friend the Hun. We, on our part, do our best ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... several instances of remarkable similarity of properties. Thus there is a strong resemblance between platinum and iridium; bromine and iodine; iron, manganese, and magnesium; cobalt and nickel; phosphorus and arsenic; but this resemblance consists mainly in their forming isomorphous compounds in which these elements exist in the same relative proportion. These compounds are similar, because the atoms of which they are composed are arranged in the same manner. ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... peculiar type which has very few representatives among the bright stars, and which has been thus described: "Spectra in which the hydrogen lines and the few metallic lines all appear to be of equal breadth and sharp definition." Rigel shows a line which some believe to represent magnesium; but while it has iron lines in its spectrum, it exhibits no evidence of the existence of any such cloud of volatilized iron as that which helps ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... fruits are iron, lime, sodium, magnesium, potash, and phosphorus. These are in solution in the fruit juices to a very great extent, and when the juices are extracted the minerals ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... orchestra playing him over the side with a selection from The Sultan of Sulu, which, in view of my ignorance as to whether Sulu possessed a national anthem, seemed highly appropriate to the occasion. As the launch bearing the Sultan shot shoreward Hawkinson set off a couple of magnesium flares, which he had brought along for the purpose of taking pictures at night, making the whole harbor of Sandakan as bright as day. I heard afterward that the Sultan remarked that we were the only visitors since the Taft party ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... compact, usually white clay-like mineral of hydrous magnesium silicate, H4Mg2Si3O10, used for tobacco pipes, building stone and ornamental carvings. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... these clear stages. We begin with stars in which only hydrogen and helium, the lightest Of elements, can be traced; and the hydrogen is in an unfamiliar form, implying terrific temperature. In the next stage we find the lines of oxygen, nitrogen, magnesium, and silicon. Metals such as iron and copper come later, at first in a primitive and unusual form. Lastly we get the compounds of titanium and carbon, and the densely shaded spectra which tell of the thickly gathering ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... to note that, whereas zinc methyl and ethyl give tertiary alcohols, zinc propyl only gives secondary alcohols. During recent years (1900 onwards) many brilliant syntheses have been effected by the aid of magnesium-alkyl-haloids. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... potassium nitrate, potassium chlorate, sodium sulphate, or magnesium sulphate, either of which or a mixture of two or more of them, the animal will readily take ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... water, so that as the latter rose in the well it dissolved and carried with itself a large amount of this salt, so much that the water was useless. Water containing more than one hundred grains per gallon of such salts as magnesium sulphate or sodium phosphate is a mineral water rather than a good drinking water, and while an occasional glass may do no harm or may even have desirable medicinal effects, such a water is ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden



Words linked to "Magnesium" :   magnesia, periclase, magnesium bicarbonate, magnesium hydroxide, magnesium carbonate, magnesite, mg, metal, olivine, metallic element, magnesium nitride, magnesium sulfate, atomic number 12



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com