melanite

noun

mel·​a·​nite ˈme-lə-ˌnīt 

: a black andradite garnet

melanitic

ˌme-lə-ˈni-tik 

adjective

Examples of melanite in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Here are the semifinalists and finalists: COMMUNITY TRACK Finalists: Melanites, by Jennifer Pierre, designs and creates diverse toys, storybooks and games that celebrate brown boyhood. —Nancy Dahlberg, miamiherald, 7 May 2017

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from German Melanit, from Greek melan-, stem of mélās "black, dark" + German -it -ite entry 1 — more at melano-

Note: Term apparently introduced by the German mineralogist Dietrich Ludwig Gustav Karsten (1768-1810) in Göttingesches Journal der Naturwissenschaft, Band 1, Heft 2 (1798), pp. 138-40.

First Known Use

circa 1807, in the meaning defined above