A variant spelling of amianthus; asbestos of a soft, silky variety.
Variant form of 'amianthus,' showing the '-us' ending typical of Latin noun nominalization. Different scholars and texts used varying transliterations, creating multiple valid historical spellings.
Medieval and Renaissance texts are full of spelling variations like this because there were no spelling police—scholars would Latinize Greek words differently depending on their training, and 'amiantus' versus 'amianthus' were equally acceptable ways to write the same word.
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