apatite

noun

Etymology: From international scientific vocabulary, from German Apatit (“apatite”). Apatit was coined by the German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817), as follows: Ancient Greek ᾰ̓πᾰ́τη (ăpắtē, “deceit, fraud”) (as it is often mistaken for other minerals) + German -it (suffix forming nouns denoting minerals or rocks; cognate with English -ite); the German word was first used in a 1786 book. Regarding minerals that were named for being deceptive and thus confused with others, compare also fool's gold.

1. A calcium fluoride phosphate of variable composition, sometimes used in the manufacture of fertilizer, as a gemstone, and (in powdered form) as a pigment, and also produced biologically in bones and teeth.

   “We had prepared, by precipitation methods, finely divided crystalline apatites that were similar in crystal size and x-ray diffraction profile to bone apatite.”