A light, silvery metal that does not rust easily and is widely used in cans, foil, airplanes, and building materials. It is the most common metal in the Earth’s crust.
From *alumina*, the oxide of aluminum, based on *alum*, a mineral salt known since ancient times, ultimately from Latin *alumen* (“alum”). The chemist Sir Humphry Davy experimented with the names *alumium*, *aluminum*, and *aluminium* in the early 1800s before they settled differently in American and British English.
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