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sphene (SFEEN) - n., a mineral, calcium titanium silicate, CaTiSiO5, occurring in usually small brown, yellow, or green crystals in metamorphic and acid igneous rocks, sometimes used as a gemstone.
Also, and more officially, called titanite, though sphene was the more common name until the 1982 decision by the International Mineralogical Association to depreciate it. I first met this, not surprisingly, in the Imperial Radch series by Anne Leckie. Name dates from 1815 and comes from French sphène, in turn coined from Greek sphēnos, a wedge, alluding to the shape of its crystals.
---L.
Also, and more officially, called titanite, though sphene was the more common name until the 1982 decision by the International Mineralogical Association to depreciate it. I first met this, not surprisingly, in the Imperial Radch series by Anne Leckie. Name dates from 1815 and comes from French sphène, in turn coined from Greek sphēnos, a wedge, alluding to the shape of its crystals.
---L.
