cyanide

cyan- +‎ -ide

• IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪənaɪd/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪd

cyanide (countable and uncountable, plural cyanides)

1. (inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, countable) Any compound containing the -C≡N group or the CN⁻ anion.
2. (inorganic chemistry) Sodium or potassium cyanide, used in the extraction of gold and silver or as a poison.
   • 1959, Tom Lehrer (lyrics and music), “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”:

     The birdies all try an' hide / But they still go for peanuts / When coated with cyanide

   • 1988 July, Michael A. Silva, “Cyanide Heap Leaching in California”, in California Geology‎, volume 41, number 7, page 147:

     Two doctors and a metallurgist from Scotland patented a process for dissolving gold with cyanide in 1887 and patented the recovery of gold from solution using finely divided zinc (zinc precipitation) the following year. […]
     The first commercial processing plant to use cyanide in the milling circuit was constructed at the Crown mine at Karangahake, New Zealand in 1889.

   • 2000, Sean Dolan, Everything You Need to Know About Cults‎, New York: The Rosen Publishing Groups, Inc., →ISBN, page 15:

     The vast majority of the victims, on Jones’s orders, had drunk a fruit punch mixture laced with cyanide, a deadly poison. Adults had fed the poisoned liquid to the children, including infants.

3. (inorganic chemistry, uncountable) Hydrogen cyanide, or cyanide gas, a poisonous gas.

cyanide (third-person singular simple present cyanides, present participle cyaniding, simple past and past participle cyanided)

1. (transitive) To treat or poison with cyanide.

• hydrocyanic acid
• Zyklon B
• Nevada gas (slang)

• cyaneid

Borrowed. Equivalent to cyaan +‎ -ide. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

• IPA^(key): /ˌsi.aːˈni.də/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cy‧a‧ni‧de
• Rhymes: -i.də

cyanide n (uncountable)

1. cyanide (C≡N-based compound)