anthracite [L18th] Originally an anthracite, in the form anthracites [L16th] was a gem described by the Roman writer Pliny as resembling glowing coals or a black stone. The word is from Greek anthrakitēs, from anthrax, anthrak- ‘coal’ or ‘carbuncle’ (meaning both a red gem like a glowing coal, and a swelling that looks like one). The same word is the source of the disease anthrax [LME] which causes black lesions in humans. Carbuncle [OE] itself keeps the same image, coming from Latin carbunculus ‘small coal’ from carbo ‘coal, charcoal’, the source of words such as carbon [L18th].