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Selenite vs Alabaster - What's the difference?

selenite | alabaster |

As nouns the difference between selenite and alabaster

is that selenite is a soft, glassy form of gypsum (chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O) while alabaster is a fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.

As an adjective alabaster is

made of alabaster.

selenite

English

Noun

  • (mineralogy) A soft, glassy form of gypsum (chemical formula Ca]]SO4·2[[water, H2O).
  • (inorganic chemistry) The anion SeO32− derived from selenous acid; any salt or ester of selenous acid.

    • Synonyms

    * satin spar (1)

    Derived terms

    * cadmium selenite * sodium selenite

    Anagrams

    *

    alabaster

    English

    (wikipedia alabaster)

    Alternative forms

    * alabastre (obsolete) * alablaster (obsolete)

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.
  • * c. 1596 , , The Merchant of Venice , Act I, Scene I, lines 89-90
    • Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
    Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ?
  • * 1867 '', ''Paradiso , Canto XV, lines 22-23] (translated by [[w:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow", Henry Wadsworth Longfellow])
    • Nor was the flame dissevered from its ribbon
  • *:: But like a radiant fillet ran along
  • *:: So that fire seemed it behind alabaster .
  • * 1915 , The New York Times , " Egyptian Antiquities for Metropolitan" (pdf), 15 May
    • One of the striking relics found at the tomb, was a Canopic portrait head of Queen Tii, made entirely of alabaster except the eyes and eyebrows, which were inlaid lapis lazuli and osidian.
  • (historical) A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.

    • Adjective

    (-)
  • Made of alabaster
    • The crown is stored in an alabaster box with an onyx handle and a gold lock.
  • Resembling alabaster: white, pale, translucent.
    • An ominous alabaster fog settled in the valley.

    Quotations

    * 1594 , William Shakespeare, " The Rape of Lucrece", lines 418-420 *: With more than admiration he admir’d *:: Her azure veins, her alabaster skin, *:: Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin. * 1611 , King James Version of the Bible, Mark 14:3 *: And being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. * before 1887 , Emily Dickinson, " Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers" *: Safe in their alabaster chambers *: Untouched by morning, untouched by noon *: Sleep the meek members of the resurrection, *: Rafters of satin, and roof of stone. * 1895 , Katherine Lee Bates, "" *: Thy alabaster cities gleam *: Undimmed by human tears! *