cyanide
pronunciation
How to pronounce cyanide in British English:
UK [ˈsaɪənaɪd]
How to pronounce cyanide in American English:
US [ˈsaɪəˌnaɪd]
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- Noun:
- any of a class of organic compounds containing the cyano radical -CN
- an extremely poisonous salt of hydrocyanic acid
Word Origin
- cyanide (n.)
- a salt of hydrocyanic acid, 1826, coined from cyan-, comb. form for carbon and nitrogen compounds, from Greek kyanos "dark blue" (see cyan) + chemical ending -ide, on analogy of chloride. So called because it first had been obtained by heating the dye pigment powder known as Prussian blue (see Prussian).
Example
- 1. But there is one problem : they are full of cyanide .
- 2. He bore the latter for two years and then took cyanide .
- 3. And extracting it from this rock often means leaching it out with cyanide .
- 4. In one case , a man died after drinking canned tea laced with cyanide .
- 5. Five years later , a gold mine in romania leaked cyanide into a danube river tributary .