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

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...

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 "

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

s" (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 Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and th ...

where such earths are mentioned as the source of his isolation of the element

silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...

. ''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

and

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

and sometimes other hard rocks. * In Latin "silex" originally referred to any hard rock, although now it often refers specifically to flint.

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled ''De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribute ...

''De Arch'' 1.5.8.5 http://latin.packhum.org/loc/1056/1/9/4230-4235 * In many

Latin languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...

, "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 In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ''embarazada'' 'pregnant'; English ''parents'' ...

. *

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