Cyanide Meaning
/ˈsaɪənaɪd/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAny compound containing the -C≡N group or the CN⁻ anion.
nounSodium or potassium cyanide, used in the extraction of gold and silver or as a poison.
Sentence Examples
All the fish in this lake died from cyanide poisoning.
Layla ordered cyanide online.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The poison found in the victim's coffee was pure ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
All the fish in this lake died from ____ poisoning.
Word Origin & History
From cyan- + -ide.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The birdies all try an' hide / But they still go for peanuts / When coated with cyanide"
— 1959, Tom Lehrer, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”:
"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."
— 1988 July, Michael A. Silva, “Cyanide Heap Leaching in California”, in California Geology, volume 41, number 7, page 147:
"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."
— 2000, Sean Dolan, Everything You Need to Know About Cults, New York: The Rosen Publishing Groups, Inc., →ISBN, page 15:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The poison found in the victim's coffee was pure ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
All the fish in this lake died from ____ poisoning.