radioactive metallic element, 1898, discovered by Marie Curie (nee Skłodowska), 1867-1934, and her husband, and named for her native country, Poland (Modern Latin Polonia). With element-name ending -ium.
Entries linking to polonium
Poland n.
1560s, from Pole + land (n.). Related: Polander.
-ium
word-forming element in chemistry, used to coin element names, from Latin adjectival suffix -ium (neuter of -ius), which formed metal names in Latin (ferrum "iron," aurum "gold," etc.). In late 18c chemists began to pay attention to the naming of their substances with words that indicate their chemical properties. Berzelius in 1811 proposed forming all element names in Modern Latin. As the names of some recently discovered metallic elements already were in Latin form (uranium, chromium, borium, etc.), the pattern of naming metallic elements in -ium or -um was maintained (in cadmium, lithium, plutonium, etc.; helium is an anomaly).