Hypertext Webster Gateway: "silicon"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Silicon \Sil"i*con\, n. [See {Silica}.] (Chem.)
A nonmetalic element analogous to carbon. It always occurs
combined in nature, and is artificially obtained in the free
state, usually as a dark brown amorphous powder, or as a dark
crystalline substance with a meetallic luster. Its oxide is
silica, or common quartz, and in this form, or as silicates,
it is, next to oxygen, the most abundant element of the
earth's crust. Silicon is characteristically the element of
the mineral kingdom, as carbon is of the organic world.
Symbol Si. Atomic weight 28. Called also {silicium}.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
silicon
n : a tetravalent nonmetallic element; next to oxygen it is the
most abundant element in the earth's crust; occurs in
clay and feldspar and granite and quartz and sand; used
as a semiconductor in transistors [syn: {Si}, {atomic
number 14}]
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