Disthene
is a obsolete synonym of Kyanite.
The name Disthene
is from the Ancient Greek words
δίς meaning two and σθένος meaning strong (or force), in allusion to Kyanite's unequal hardness in two different directions.
René Just Haüy (1743-1822) named the mineral Disthene
in 1801 but the name Kyanite had already been established. Haüy was a French mineralogist
and is often referred to as the "Father of Modern Crystallography".
Kyanite was named in 1789 by Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817), a professor of mining and mineralogy at the Freiberg Mining Academy,
Freiberg, Saxony, Germany,
from the Greek word kyanos,
meaning blue, its common color. The French spelling,
Cyanite, was commonly used by mineralogists through much of the 19th
and early 20th centuries. Kyanite was also referred to as Blue
Talc (Talc bleu) in 1784 by B. G. Sage (1740-1824), a
French mineralogist and chemist.
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