Zinc

1. n. An abundant element of the magnesium-cadmium group, extracted principally from the minerals zinc blende, smithsonite, calamine, and franklinite, as an easily fusible bluish white metal, which is malleable, especially when heated. It is not easily oxidized in moist air, and hence is used for sheeting, coating galvanized iron, etc. It is used in making brass, britannia, and other alloys, and is also largely consumed in electric batteries. Symbol Zn. Atomic weight 64.9.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.