scandium n.

1765, from Late Latin Scandinavia (Pliny), Skandinovia (Pomponius Mela), name of a large and fruitful island vaguely located in northern Europe, a mistake (with unetymological -n-) for Scadinavia, which is from a Germanic source (compare Old English Scedenig, Old Norse Skaney "south end of Sweden"), from Proto-Germanic *skadinaujo "Scadia island." The first element is of uncertain origin; the second element is from *aujo "thing on the water" (from PIE root *akwā- "water;" see aqua-). It might have been an island when the word was formed; the coastlines and drainage of the Baltic Sea changed dramatically after the melting of the ice caps.

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).