lithium
noun/ˈlɪθi.əm/
Etymology From New Latin lithium, from Ancient Greek λίθος (líthos, “stone”) + -ium.
1
The simplest alkali metal, the lightest solid element, and the third lightest chemical element (symbol Li) with an atomic number of 3 and atomic weight of 6.94. It is a soft, silvery metal.
- The importance of lithium-ion batteries makes lithium a potentially strategic natural resource.
- Already, beautiful places are being wrecked by an electric vehicle resource rush. Lithium mining, for example, is now poisoning rivers and depleting groundwater from Tibet to Bolivia.2019, George Monbiot, “Cars are killing us. Within 10 years, we must phase them out”, in Guardian.:
2
A single atom of this element.
3
Medicine, Pharmacology, Sciences Lithium carbonate or other preparations of lithium metal used as a mood stabiliser to treat manic depression and bipolar disorders.
- It seems like his moods are better since he started taking lithium.
- There's more: Part of the reason I am so meek is that I stopped taking my lithium a few weeks before. It's not that I have a death wish, and it's not that I'm like Axl Rose and think that lithium makes me less manly (he supposedly stopped taking it after his first wife told him that his dick wasn't as hard as it used to be and that sex with him was lousy;[…]).1994, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, page 4:
1 more example
- Lithium has been used as a mood stabiliser for 50 years but its action mechanism is still unclear.2008, Barbara Kozier, Fundamentals of Nursing: Concepts, Process and Practice, Pearson Education, →ISBN, page 191:
4
A lithium battery.
- Derived terms
64 terms
antilithium, butyllithium, dilithio-, dilithium, lithiation, lithio-, lithium-6, lithium-7, lithium acetate, lithium aluminium hydride, lithium aluminohydride, lithium aluminum hydride, lithium amide, lithium battery, lithium borohydride, lithium bromide, lithium carbonate, lithium chloride, lithium citrate, lithium deuteride, lithium diisopropylamide, lithium-drifted silicon detector, lithium economy, lithium fluoride, lithium hexafluorophosphate, lithium hydride, lithium hydroxide, lithium iodide, lithium-ion battery, lithium ion battery, lithiumlike, lithium metaborate, lithium naphthalene, lithium naphthalide, lithium niobate, lithium nitrate, lithium nitride, lithium orotate, lithium oxide, lithium oxybutyrate, lithium perchlorate, lithium peroxide, lithium soap, lithium stearate, lithium sulfate, lithium sulfide, lithium sulphate, lithium sulphide, lithium tantalate, lithium titanate oxide battery, Lithium Triangle, lithium triborate, metalithium, methyllithium, monolithium, nonlithium, organolithium, organo-lithium, phenyllithium, radiolithium, tetralithium, trilithium, vinyllithium, yttrium lithium fluoride- Related terms
- -lite, lith-, -lith, lithate, lithiate, lithia, lithian, lithiated, lithic, lithiophilite, lithiophorite, litho-