Two blocks of cadmium, one an oblong bar and the other a cube
7 April 2023
Cadmium is a soft, silvery-white metal with atomic number 48 and symbol Cd. Its etymology is quite straightforward, coming from the Latin cadmia (zinc oxide) as it was first isolated from zinc oxide sold in German pharmacies. Cadmium is often found mixed with zinc in ores.
It was so dubbed by its discoverer, Friedrich Stromeyer in 1817:
Dieses sind die bis jetzt über dieses Metall von mir gemachten Erfahrungen. So unvollkommen dieselben auch noch sind, so trage ich hiernach doch kein Bedenken dieses Metall für ein wirklich neues und von allen übrigen wesentlich verschicdenes Metall, zu, halten. Da ich dasselbe zuerst in den Zinkoxyden aufgefunden habe, so nehme ich hiervon Anlafs es Kadmium zu nennen.
(These are the experiences I have had with this metal so far. However imperfect they may still be, I have no hesitation in considering this metal to be a really new metal that is essentially different from all the others. As I first found it in the oxides of zinc, I take the occasion to call it cadmium.)
The name quickly became established in most European languages.
Sources:
Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements: Part 2—Turbulent Nineteenth Century.” Foundations of Chemistry, 8 December 2022 (online).
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. cadmium, n., cadmia, n.
Stromeyer, Friedrich. “Ein Neu Entdecktes Metall und Analyse Eines Neuen Minerals.” Journal für Chemie und Physik. 21, 1817, 303. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Photo credit: Heinrich Pniok, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivative 3.0 (US) License.