Apatit

See also: apatit

German[edit]

Coined by the German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817) from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓πᾰ́τη (apátē, “deceit, fraud”) as it is often mistaken for other minerals (possibly from Pre-Greek) +‎ -it (suffix forming nouns denoting minerals or rocks).^[1]

Apatit m (strong, genitive Apatits, plural Apatite)

(mineralogy) apatite [from 1786]
- 1786, Carl Abraham Gerhard, “Erster Anhang [First Addendum]”, in Grundriß des Mineralsystems zu Vorlesungen [Outline of the Mineral Systems for Lectures], Berlin: Christian Friedrich Himburg, →OCLC, page 281:
  Von einigen noch nicht genau bestimmten und ganz neu entdeckten Mineralien. Ich rechne hierzu folgende drei Körper: 1. Den Apatit des Herrn Werners. […]
  On some still not precisely determined and quite recently discovered minerals. I count among these the following three substances: 1. the apatite of Mr. Werner. […]

Declension of Apatit [masculine, strong]

^ A[braham] G[ottlob] Werner (1788) “Geschichte, Karakteristik, und kurze chemische Untersuchung des Apatits [History, Characteristics, and Brief Chemical Investigation of Apatite]”, in Bergmännisches Journal [Miners’ Journal], volume I, Freyberg: Alexander Bilhelm Köhler; Grazischen Buchhandlung, →OCLC, pages 84–85:
Ich wies hierauf diesem Foßile, als einer eigenen Gattung, sogleich eine Stelle in dem Kalkgeschlechte an; und ertheilte ihm, – weil es bisher alle Mineralogen in seiner Bestimmung irre geführt hatte, – den Namen Apatit, den ich von dem griechischen Worte απατάω (decipio) bildete, und welcher so viel as Trügling sagt.
I then immediately assigned to this fossil [i.e., material obtained from underground], as a separate type, a place in the lime lineage; and conferred on it, — because it had previously led astray all mineralogists in its classification — the name apatite, which I formed from the Greek word απατάω (I deceive), and which says as much as [the word] deceiver.