sodium cyanide

American

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.

sodium cyanide British

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

Etymology

Origin of sodium cyanide

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Lloyds List, a shipping data company, said on Monday that it was carrying sodium cyanide.

From BBC • Mar. 11, 2025

Founded more than a century ago, Draslovka produces chemicals used in the mining and agricultural industries, including highly toxic sodium cyanide.

From Reuters • Jul. 27, 2023

Perkovich said a discrepancy between the potassium cyanide obtained by corrections officials and the sodium cyanide called for under state execution protocol "is not a small detail."

From Salon • Jun. 2, 2021

He gets the occasional crippling migraine, as well as a strange numbness in his hands that he never experienced before his exposure to sodium cyanide.

From The Guardian • Jun. 26, 2020

When such eggs are treated with a weak solution of sodium cyanide or chloral hydrate, they return to the resting condition.

From Popular Science Monthly Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 by Anonymous

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023