a. and sb. [a. F. argentin, ad. L. argentīnus of silver.] A. adj.
1. Of, made of, or containing silver.
1537. W. Holme, Fall Reb., 40. An antick deaurate with letters argentine.
1791. Person, in Phil. Trans., LXXXI. 353. Argentine spicula were seen in the larger grains.
1849. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sc., xxiv. 224. The property of blackening argentine salts.
2. Silvery.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 526. Argentine, or Siluer Thistel.
1608. Shaks., Per., V. i. 251. Celestial Dian, goddess argentine.
1841. Hor. Smith, Moneyed Man, I. iii. 46. The meanest sounds that pampered mine ear have been argentine.
1859. W. Gregory, Egypt, II. 35. The argentine raiment which the moon … had thrown over Karnak.
B. sb.
1. Silver, or a material simulating it: a. ? Wrought silver, silver filagree. b. Imitation silver, electroplate. c. The silvery lamellæ on the scales of fish, used in the manufacture of artificial pearls.
1577. Holinshed, Chron., III. 857/1. Images of sore and terrible countenances, all armed in curious worke of argentine.
1839–47. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., III. 972/1. The material which gives this metallic lustre to the scales of Fishes, known in commerce under the name of ‘Argentine.’
1847. Bachel. Albany (1854), 115. The argentine and albata did their best to look silvery.
2. Zool. A genus of small fishes, of the family Salmonidæ, with very silvery scales: see 1 c. Also applied by Pennant to the Scopelus Pennanti or Humboldtii, now called the Pearlside.
1769. Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. 432.
1854. Badham, Halieut., 285. Shoals of argentine are consumed annually in this commerce.
† 3. Herb. The Silver-weed (Potentilla anserina), Gerard, 1597; Withering. Argentine Thistle, the Cotton Thistle (Onopordium Acanthium) Lyte, 1578.
4. Min. Slate-spar (Humble, Dict. Geol.).
1794. Kirwan.
1868. Dana, Min., 678. Argentine … a pearly lamellar calcite … colour white, grayish, yellowish, or reddish.
