pitchblende

[ pich-blend ]

noun

, Mineralogy.

1. a massive variety of uraninite, occurring in black pitchlike masses: a major ore of uranium and radium.

pitchblende

/ ˈpɪtʃˌblɛnd /

noun

1. a blackish mineral that is a type of uraninite and occurs in veins, frequently associated with silver: the principal source of uranium and radium. Formula: UO 2

pitchblende

/ pĭch′blĕnd′ /

1. A brown to black, often crusty, cubic mineral that is a principal ore of uranium. It is highly radioactive. Chemical formula: UO 2 .

Word History and Origins

Origin of pitchblende¹

1760–70; half translation, half adoption of German Pechblende. See pitch ², blende

Word History and Origins

Origin of pitchblende¹

C18: partial translation of German Pechblende, from Pech pitch ² (from its black colour) + blende

Example Sentences

We watch the husband-wife team as they conducted painstaking experiments in their underfunded labs and endured back-breaking labor to shovel, crush and boil tons of pitchblende ore to measure signs of radioactivity hidden within.

From Scientific American

To investigate uranium at their Paris laboratory, Marie acquired several tons of pitchblende, a black ore, and the industrial waste product left over when uranium was removed from it.

From Washington Times

She came across pitchblende, an ore with radioactivity that was too strong to be explained by uranium alone.

From Nature

He tested a piece of pitchblende, the principal ore of uranium, and found it to be 700 million years old–very much older than the age most people were prepared to grant the Earth.

From Literature

Pierre and Marie liked nothing better than weighing out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and grounding it with a mortar and pestle.

From Washington Post