The Etymology of Arsenic
Arsenic has a long, multi-language journey. The deepest source is Old Persian zarnik (later Persian zar), meaning yellow — specifically the yellow mineral orpiment, an arsenic sulphide ore that ancient Persians used as a pigment and medicine. Aramaic borrowed the word as zarnīkā, and Greek then took it from Aramaic. But a remarkable thing happened in Greek: speakers reshaped the unfamiliar word zarnīkā into arsenikon by folk-etymological association with arsen (male, masculine, potent), perhaps because alchemists believed minerals had male and female forms. So the Greek arsenikon looks as though it means manly stuff but is really a foreign word in disguise. Latin took arsenicum from Greek, Old French smoothed it to arsenic, and Middle English borrowed it around 1390. The metalloid element itself was isolated by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century. Arsenic compounds were the classic poison of medieval and Renaissance Europe — odourless, tasteless, with symptoms easily mistaken for natural illness. The modern atomic symbol As preserves the old name.