Silex is any of various forms of ground stone. In modern contexts the word refers to a finely ground, nearly pure form of silica or

silicate In chemistry, a silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is al ...

. In the late 16th century, it meant powdered or ground up " flints" (i.e. stones, generally meaning the class of "hard rocks") It was later used in 1787 when describing experiments in a published paper by Antoine Lavoisier where such earths are mentioned as the source of his isolation of the element silicon. ''Silex'' is now most commonly used to describe finely ground

s used as pigments in

paint Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...

Archaic and foreign uses

* The word "silex" was previously used to refer to flint and chert and sometimes other hard rocks. * In Latin "silex" originally referred to any hard rock, although now it often refers specifically to flint. Vitruvius ''De Arch'' 1.5.8.5 http://latin.packhum.org/loc/1056/1/9/4230-4235 * In many Latin languages, "silex" or a similar word is used to refer to flint. Although the modern English word "silex" has the same etymology, its current meaning has changed. These are false friends. *

FK Sileks FK Sileks ( mk, ФК Силекс) is a football club based in Kratovo, North Macedonia who play in the Macedonian First League. History The club was founded in 1965. Sileks biggest accomplishment in 90s came in the Yugoslav Cup where they rea ...

are a North Macedonian football team based in Kratovo whose name literally means "flint."

References

Silicon Pavements Atomic physics {{material-stub