platina en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (US) audio
Etymology
From Spanish platina (“little silver”) del Pinto ("of the Pinto"). It was called "little" (or "lesser") silver because the metal was found as an impurity in gold, and del Pinto for the Pinto River in Grand Columbia where Europeans discovered it being mined by Native Americans. Doublet of platinum.
Meanings
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(obsolete, uncountable) platinum.
She recites the principal metals, and has Sophie repeat them: gold, silver, platina, quicksilver, copper, iron, lead, tin, aluminium.
2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 792: