asbestos [E17th] In Greek asbestos meant ‘unquenchable’. In English it originally referred to a mythical stone that once set alight was impossible to extinguish. This was probably a distorted reference to classical Greek uses of it for ‘quicklime’: when cold water is poured on quicklime it reacts with a lot of heat and fizzing. The word was revived in the 17th century to refer to the fibrous mineral used for making fireproof material.