Word.ws English Dictionary

calamine

calamine noun: synonym of smithsonite, a pink form of zinc oxide (mainly zinc carbonate ZnCO₃) formed as a byproduct of zinc sublimation, now used in skin lotions.

Noun

calamine (usually uncountable, plural calamines)

  1. (usually) Synonym of smithsonite, a pink form of zinc oxide (mainly zinc carbonate ZnCO₃) formed as a byproduct of zinc sublimation, now used in skin lotions.
    • Poison Ivy, Lord,'ll make you itch
      You're gonna need an ocean
      Of calamine lotion
      You'll be scratchin' like a hound
      The minute you start to mess around1959, “Poison Ivy”, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (lyrics), performed by The Coasters
    • For Secret Santa two years before, she had gifted him a bottle of calamine lotion.2022, Ling Ma, “Tomorrow”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    smithsonite, calaminaris, lapis calaminaris
  2. (usually) Synonym of hemimorphite, an orthorhombic-pyramidal mineral containing zinc.
    Synonyms:
    hemimorphite

Verb

calamine (third-person singular simple present calamines, present participle calamining, simple past and past participle calamined)

  1. (transitive) To coat or treat with calamine.

calamine meaning in Tamil

calamine in Tamil

துத்தநாகம் கலந்த கனிப்பொருள், தோல் எரிச்சல் நீக்க மருந்து, கலமின்

Synonyms of calamine

Forms of calamine

Noun
pluralcalamines
Verb
third-person singular presentcalamines
present participlecalamining
past participlecalamined
pastcalamined

Origin of calamine

From French calamine, from Medieval Latin calamīna, from Latin cadmīa, ultimately from Ancient Greek Κᾰδμείᾱ (Kădmeíā), from Κάδμος (Kádmos, “Cadmus”) + -εια (-eia, “-ia: forming related substances”). Doublet of cadmia, calaminaris, and lapis calaminaris.

Words formed from calamine

Questions about calamine

What does calamine mean?
Calamine means synonym of smithsonite, a pink form of zinc oxide (mainly zinc carbonate ZnCO₃) formed as a byproduct of zinc sublimation, now used in skin lotions.
What is calamine in Tamil?
Calamine in Tamil is துத்தநாகம் கலந்த கனிப்பொருள், தோல் எரிச்சல் நீக்க மருந்து, கலமின். See Calamine meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is calamine?
Calamine can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of calamine?
The plural of calamine is calamines.

Words near calamine in the dictionary

  1. Calamia
  2. Calamian
  3. Calamians
  4. Calamias
  5. calamiferous
  6. calamine
  7. calamine brass
  8. calamined
  9. calamines
  10. calamining
  11. calamint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: calamine (page history and authors); calamine (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “calamine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/calamine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.