Word.ws English Dictionary

Canton's phosphorus

Canton's phosphorus noun: a poorly-characterized phosphorescent substance obtained by calcining oyster-shells and sulfur.

Noun

Canton's phosphorus (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) A poorly-characterized phosphorescent substance obtained by calcining oyster-shells and sulfur.
    • Canton's phosphorus is made by calcining oyster-shells in the open fire for half an hour; after which, the whitest and largest pieces are selected, mixed with about one-third their weight of flowers of sulphur, pressed into a crucible with a closely-luted cover, and heated red hot for an hour.1861, John Henry Pepper, The Playbook of Metals: Including Personal Narratives of Visits to Coal, Lead, Copper, and Tin

Origin of Canton's phosphorus

Named after John Canton, British physicist.

Questions about Canton's phosphorus

What does Canton's phosphorus mean?
Canton's phosphorus means a poorly-characterized phosphorescent substance obtained by calcining oyster-shells and sulfur.
What part of speech is Canton's phosphorus?
Canton's phosphorus is a noun.

Words near Canton's phosphorus in the dictionary

  1. Canton flannels
  2. Canton Jargon
  3. Canton lemon
  4. Canton matting
  5. canton of Zurich
  6. Canton's phosphorus
  7. cantonal
  8. cantonalism
  9. cantonalist
  10. cantonalists
  11. Cantone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Canton's phosphorus (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.

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