artificial highly radioactive metallic element, 1946, named by U.S. chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, who helped discover it in 1944, for the Curies (see curie). With metallic element ending -ium.
Entries linking to curium
curie n.
"unit of radioactivity," 1910, named for French physicist Pierre Curie (1859-1906), who, with his wife, Marie (1867-1934), discovered radium. The family name in Old French means "kitchen."
-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).