Resembling asbestos in appearance or structure, particularly in having fine, thread-like or silky fibers.
From 'asbestos' (the fireproof mineral from Greek 'asbestos,' inextinguishable) plus '-oid' (resembling). This term emerged in mineralogy to describe similar-looking substances.
Some minerals are naturally asbestoid in structure but completely harmless—the tragedy of asbestos history is that similar-looking materials got lumped together, which both prevented proper understanding of the dangers and wasted research on false substitute materials.
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