Brit. [a modification of ALUMINUM, the name given by its discoverer, Sir H. Davy c. 1812 (for which he had first of all used ALUMIUM), f. ALUMINA. The termination -ium now preferred harmonizes best with other names of elements, as sodium, potassium, magnesium, lithium, selenium, etc. Both alumium and aluminum lived for some time.] A metal, white, sonorous, ductile, and malleable, very light, not oxidized in the air, used for instruments, ornaments, and as an alloy. In Chem. it has the symbol Al., is tetratomic, has alumina as its oxide, and the alums as its chief salts.
1812. Q. Rev., VIII. 72. Aluminium, for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound.
1835. Hoblyn, Dict. Med., 6. Aluminium, the metallic base of alumina.
1845. Vest. Creation, ii. (ed. 3), 34. Aluminium … is another abundant elementary substance.
c. 1860. Faraday, Forces of Nat., i. 195, note. Aluminium is 21/2 times heavier than water.
1869. Eng. Mech., 14 May, 187/3. Some Belgian manufacturer has just had a bell cast of aluminium.
1876. C. Geikie, Life in Woods, xxv. 399. Science got the beautiful metal aluminium out of the clay which ignorance trod under foot.
b. attrib. in chem. compounds, as Aluminium chloride (also Chloride of aluminium, and Aluminic chloride), Aluminium fluoride, sulphate (Sulphate of alumina), silicate, etc. Also in Aluminium-Bronze, a beautiful and important alloy (or chemical compound) of aluminium and copper.
1863. Watts, Dict. Chem. (1879), I. 154. General character and reactions of Aluminium compounds.
1873. Fownes, Chem., 372. Aluminium Sulphate crystallises in thin pearly plates, soluble in 2 parts of water.
1862. Morn. Star, 21 May. The specimens of aluminium-bronze, as it is called, have a fine golden hue, which appears to especial advantage in combination with the pure metal.
