sodium cyanide

American  

noun

Chemistry.

1. 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

1. 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

---

Etymology

Origin of sodium cyanide

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sodium cyanide

Walsall Council leader Garry Perry confirmed that sodium cyanide had been spilled into the water.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2024

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

A white precipitate forms temporarily but dissolves as the addition of sodium cyanide continues.

From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019

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