Chemical Element: samarium

(Modern Latin: named for a Scandinavian mineral samarskite; rare earth)

Chemical-Element Information

Symbol: Sm
Atomic number: 62
Year discovered: 1879

Discovered by: Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838-1912), a French chemist.

Samarium was discovered spectroscopically by its sharp absorption lines, in 1853, by Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac in an “earth” called didymia.
The element was isolated, in 1879, by Lecoq de Boisbaudran from the mineral samarskite, named in honor of a Russian mine official, Colonel Samarski, and which therefore gave samarium its name.

Name in other languages:

French: samarium

German: Samarium

Italian: samario

Spanish: samario

Information about other elements may be seen at this Chemical Elements List.

A special unit about words that include chemo-, chem- may be seen here.

If there are any numbers below, use them to see other pages in this unit.

Back to Index | Search Box | Main Index

The Main-Word Info page

The + sign at the end of a unit title means all of the words in that unit have definitions.

Directory of special content and topics

Do you want to help to make this dictionary bigger and better?

Subscribe to this FREE Focusing on Words Newsletter

E-mail Contact words@wordinfo.info