How to Use pyrite in a Sentence

pyrite

noun
  • The free-agent market is often a place of pyrite rather than gold.
    David Murphy, Philly.com, 13 Mar. 2018
  • So, real gold or iron pyrite, there is little hit to take.
    Nick Canepa Columnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Sep. 2020
  • Flashy hitting stats are often iron pyrite in the Cactus League.
    Andrew Baggarly, The Mercury News, 1 Mar. 2017
  • Some skulls were crafted into masks with eyeballs of shell and pyrite.
    Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, 31 Mar. 2018
  • But the latest market gold rush also has produced its share of pyrite.
    Paul Vigna, WSJ, 4 Sep. 2017
  • But there wasn’t just one moment when a caveman picked up a hunk of pyrite, struck it against a rock, and marveled at the resulting sparks.
    Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Discover Magazine, 27 Feb. 2024
  • Geology has found tiny amounts of gold can be trapped inside pyrite.
    David Bressan, Forbes, 27 June 2021
  • There’s a knack to striking sparks from flint and pyrite, as any sufficiently old-school backpacker can tell you.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 26 July 2018
  • The mineral world's champion of diverse origins is the humble pyrite (FeS2), known by many as Fool's Gold.
    David Bressan, Forbes, 2 July 2022
  • While Fool's Gold (minerals like iron pyrite and mica flakes) will sparkle in the pan, gold is the only one that stays truly golden when the pan is shaded by a miner's hand.
    Peter Reese, Popular Mechanics, 27 Aug. 2020
  • Scattered among them are small obsidian tools, stone figurines and mirrors made of pyrite.
    Will Hunt, Discover Magazine, 19 Dec. 2014
  • The pyrite half of the Paleolithic firestarting kit often doesn't last as long as flint, because pyrite tends to oxidize and corrode away over time.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 26 July 2018
  • The firm had advanced a large loan to the Fulgencio Batista government in Cuba for mining pyrite, a mineral used in jewelry.
    Shawn Tully, Fortune, 17 Jan. 2020
  • Discovered by Sir John Franklin in 1826, the hills are named for the sulphureous smoke emitted by the spontaneous ignition of tiny iron pyrite particles.
    Rachel King, Fortune, 7 Jan. 2023
  • The tunnel’s walls were decorated with pyrite, or fool’s gold, which reflected firelight to create the illusion of a sky dotted with stars.
    Livia Gershon, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Aug. 2021
  • Iron sulfide, better known as pyrite or fool's gold, could have a new lease on the high life after researchers turned it into a magnet using an electrical treatment.
    Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 31 July 2020
  • And Mary and Jesus are given natural (if irregular) halos by glimmering gold pyrite specks in the lapis.
    Judith H. Dobrzynski, WSJ, 12 Mar. 2022
  • But for many young players like Jokic, who just turned 22, nothing gold can stay without addressing the inevitable exposure of pyrite that comes as teams adjust their defense to slow him.
    Nick Kosmider, The Denver Post, 27 Feb. 2017
  • Soft tissue such as muscle do not typically fossilize, but these were preserved as the mineral pyrite.
    David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 22 Feb. 2019
  • If anyone tried to tamper with the master image (by, say, transforming the pyrite of a stringy-haired goatee guy into the gold of an alien), a skeptic could double-check the image by running it through that algorithm.
    Sandra Upson, Wired, 11 Nov. 2021
  • Fire also crawled into the mine along hundreds of feet of polyethylene pipe, a fuse that could have ignited the combustible pyrite — fool’s gold — causing an explosion deep inside the cavern.
    NBC News, 23 Dec. 2020
  • Materials like the copper ore mineral chalcocite and fool's gold, pyrite, are sulfidic anions.
    David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 9 Apr. 2018
  • Pair Pothos with Golden Pyrite Golden pyrite and pothos paired cultivate abundance—something every multi-hyphenate needs in her toolkit.
    Tanya Lichtenstein, Sunset Magazine, 22 May 2020
  • The Griffith and Grafton lines include cabinets, mirrors, and tables ornamented with semispherical pieces of sparkling pyrite set like jewels.
    Tim McKeough, ELLE Decor, 7 Aug. 2015
  • The researchers then conducted numerous experiments using replicas of the bifaces in different ways, from grinding manganese and ochre to striking pyrite.
    Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 19 July 2018
  • The top layer is lined with gold flakes and various crystals—including black obsidian, pyrite, citrine, and tiger’s eye—that are all associated with good fortune and protection.
    L. Daniela Alvarez, Better Homes & Gardens, 27 Oct. 2023
  • The perimeter has darker stones like tourmaline, hematite and pyrite that are said to block negative energy and electromagnetic fields produced by electronic objects.
    Caroline Tell, New York Times, 15 Aug. 2017
  • The twelve stones, unearthed by archaeologists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, included quartz and pyrite among other rocks, many of which had been fashioned into tools or showed signs of wear and tear from human use.
    Breanna Draxler, Discover Magazine, 15 Jan. 2013
  • Rapid oxidation of the pyrite, perhaps accelerated initially by microbes, heated the rock enough to ignite dispersed solid carbonaceous matter present in the shale.
    Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 15 Aug. 2011
  • The company dumped iron pyrite cinders into the marsh and later manufactured fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides there.
    Sarah Ravani, SFChronicle.com, 15 Dec. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pyrite.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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