bone-ash cup
- noun
- Archaic
:
copa de ceniza de hueso
- During the assaying process, bone-ash cups help separate precious metals from base materials.
Examples
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The metallurgist placed the sample in a bone-ash cup before heating it in the furnace.
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I bought several bone-ash cups for my laboratory.
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A new shipment of bone-ash cups arrived for use in the laboratory.
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The bone-ash cup was essential for the assay process.
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During the assaying process, bone-ash cups help separate precious metals from base materials.
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The metallurgist placed the sample in a bone-ash cup before heating it in the furnace.
-
A new shipment of bone-ash cups arrived for use in the laboratory.
Synonyms
A small heatproof bowl made of bone ash to separate metals like gold or silver during testing
A small porous cup made from burned bone that separates gold or silver from lead when heated
Surface Forms
Morphology
bone-ash + cup
The compound follows a common material+object pattern: a B1 learner who knows 'bone' and 'ash' together with 'cup' can reasonably infer it is a cup made from bone-ash (i.e., ash derived from bone). However, the precise technical function (a small porous bowl used specifically in assaying to separate precious metals) and the specialized sense of 'bone-ash' are domain-specific and not fully predictable, so full meaning requires prior exposure.
Etymology
The name bone-ash cup comes from the material and the shape: it is a small cup made from bone-ash, the white powder left when animal bones are burned. These heat-proof cups were used to hold metal samples in a furnace to 'test metals' and help 'separate precious metals', so the name tells you exactly what the object does.
