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sodium cyanide

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noun Chemistry.
a white, crystalline, deliquescent, water-soluble, poisonous powder, NaCN, prepared by heating sodium amide with charcoal: used chiefly in casehardening alloys, in the leaching and flotation of ore, and in electroplating.
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Origin of sodium cyanide

First recorded in 1880–85

Words nearby sodium cyanide

sodium bromide, sodium carbonate, sodium chlorate, sodium chloride, sodium citrate, sodium cyanide, sodium cyclamate, sodium dichromate, sodium ethylate, sodium fluoride, sodium fluoroacetate
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use sodium cyanide in a sentence

  • When at last apprehended, Siddiqui was carrying a jar containing two pounds of a deadly poison, sodium cyanide.

    Books That Go Straight to the Trash|David Frum|January 12, 2012|DAILY BEAST

  • This chloride is then mixed with sodium cyanide in alcoholic solution and distilled, benzyl cyanide being the result.

    America's Munitions 1917-1918|Benedict Crowell

  • Sodium cyanide is a salt of hydrocyanic acid, which for, some curious reason is called "Prussic acid."

    Creative Chemistry|Edwin E. Slosson

British Dictionary definitions for sodium cyanide

sodium cyanide
noun
a white odourless crystalline soluble poisonous compound with an odour of hydrogen cyanide when damp. It is used for extracting gold and silver from their ores and for case-hardening steel. Formula: NaCN
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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