A mineral composed of silver chloride, historically important as an ore of silver and also known as horn silver due to its horn-like appearance.
From Latin 'cera' (wax) combined with 'argyrite' (from Greek 'argyros' meaning silver), referring to its waxy luster. The name describes the mineral's wax-like, horn-like translucent quality.
Cerargyrite literally looks like pieces of translucent horn or wax when you hold it up to light, and it's so soft you can cut it with a knife—miners in the 1800s thought it was amazing that such fragile-looking material contained valuable silver!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.