Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A colorless, flammable, pungent, highly poisonous gas, C2N2, used as a rocket propellant, an insecticide, and a chemical weapon.
- noun A univalent CN group found in simple and complex cyanide compounds.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Chemical symbol Cy. A compound radical, CN, composed of one atom of nitrogen and one of carbon.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Chem.) A colorless, inflammable, poisonous gas, C2N2, with a peach-blossom odor, so called from its tendency to form
blue compounds; obtained by heating ammonium oxalate, mercuric cyanide, etc. It is obtained in combination, forming an alkaline cyanide when nitrogen or a nitrogenous compound is strongly ignited with carbon and soda or potash. It conducts itself like a member of the halogen group of elements, and shows a tendency to form complex compounds. The name is also applied to the univalent radical, CN (the half molecule of cyanogen proper), which was one of the first compound radicals recognized.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
colourless ,poisonous gas used as arocket propellant , aninsecticide and inchemical warfare . - noun chemistry The
pseudohalogen (CN)2. - noun chemistry The
radical -CN.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a colorless toxic gas with a pungent almond odor; has been used in chemical warfare
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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A second commentator suggested it might have been a piece of a comet; comets often contain cyanogen, which at low levels could cause the symptoms described.
Meteor strike makes Peruvians ill ewillett 2007
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Last month, its instruments showed that the comet was emitting a toxic gas called cyanogen whose output increased fivefold over an eight-day period before slowly decreasing again.
Hartley 2: Nasa hopes Epoxi probe will unlock mysteries of the comets Robin McKie 2010
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Jets spewing from the comet's nucleus contain cyanogen (CN: a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C2).
Green Comet Approaches Earth Oldhead1 2009
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False alarm: The wispy tail of the comet couldn't penetrate Earth's dense atmosphere; even it if had penetrated, there wasn't enough cyanogen to cause real trouble.
Green Comet Approaches Earth Oldhead1 2009
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In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley.
Green Comet Approaches Earth Oldhead1 2009
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I think we can get the formula out of him for curing this cyanogen damage.
REBELS: THE LIBERATED, BOOK III OF III DAFYDD AB HUGH 2008
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I think we can get the formula out of him for curing this cyanogen damage.
REBELS: THE LIBERATED, BOOK III OF III DAFYDD AB HUGH 2008
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Supposedly the cancer cells would gobble it up, free the cyanogen portion of the molecule and be poisoned.
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"Heat it -- to ninety, or a hundred degrees -- it gives off a deadly gas -- cyanogen."
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"Heat it -- to ninety, or a hundred degrees -- it gives off a deadly gas -- cyanogen."
chained_bear commented on the word cyanogen
"Frederick Abel, the joint-inventor of cordite, once asked himself, 'Who would not work, and even slave, for Hofmann?' Before he tackled explosives, Abel conducted an analysis of the mineral waters of Cheltenham and researched the effects of various substances on aniline (one of which was the poisonous gas cyanogen, from which his eyes suffered permanent damage)."
Simon Garfield, Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 2000), 25.
See also August Wilhelm von Hofmann.
October 4, 2017