Etymology

nickel

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Today it means: A silvery elemental metal with an atomic number of 28 and symbol Ni. Full definition →

German Nicke ← Latin Nīcolāus ← Ancient Greek Νῑκόλᾱος (Nīkólāos)
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nickel · noun, adjective, verb1

  1. Ancient Greekνῑ́κη (nī́kē)
  2. Proto-Hellenic*lāwós
  3. Ancient Greekλᾱός (lāós)
  4. Ancient GreekΝῑκόλᾱος (Nīkólāos)
  5. LatinNīcolāus
  6. GermanNikolaus
  7. GermanNicke
  8. English todaynickel

Borrowed from German Nickel, first used in a text by the Swedish mineralogist Axel F. Cronstedt as an abbreviation of Kupfernickel (“a mineral containing copper and nickel”), from Kupfer (“copper”) + Nickel (“insignificant person, goblin”), originally nickname of Nikolaus (“Nicholas”), due to the deceptive silver colour of the relatively valueless ore. Compare cobalt as related to kobolds.

Nickel · proper noun2

One of the variant spellings of Nichol, a Middle English vernacular form of the given name Nicholas.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.