Where does “alumina” come from?

Alumina comes from Latin alūmen, a bitter-tasting mineral salt used in dyeing and metalworking, with the feminine suffix -a added in English to denote the oxide form.

alumina (English): Aluminum oxide, especially when used in mining,...

Definitions

  1. Aluminum oxide, especially when used in mining,...

Ancestry of “alumina”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Latinalūmenalum
2English-ium1997, Bryan Pfaffenberger, "Official Microsoft...
3Latin-umnominative neuter singular of -us; accusative...
4Proto-Italic*-om—
5Proto-Indo-European*-oHom—

Words derived from “alumina”

Every word from Proto-Indo-European *-oHom →Every word from English -ium →Every word from Latin alūmen →