Etymology

mineral

min·eral
M3I1N1E1R1A1L1

Today it means: Any naturally occurring solid material that has a (more or less) definite chemical composition and characteristic physical properties; especially, an inorganic and crystalline one. Full definition →

Middle English mineral ← Old French mineral ← Medieval Latin minerale
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Medieval Latin · derived fromminerale
  2. Old French · derived frommineral
  3. Middle English · inherited frommineral
  4. English todaymineral

From Middle English mineral, borrowed from Old French mineral, (French minéral), from Medieval Latin minerale, from minera (“ore”), probably ultimately derived from Latin mina (“ore, mine”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.