Well attestedNamed from the place
tanzanite
noun · first attested 1968
The gem trade rejected the mineral's real name as sounding too much like suicide.
A blue to violet gem variety of the mineral zoisite.
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 1968
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Tanzania
- In English
tanzanite
Blue zoisite was found in the Merelani Hills near Arusha in the mid 1960s and reached the market through Tiffany and Company in 1968. Henry B. Platt, a vice president of the firm, coined tanzanite for the newly independent country rather than sell the stone as blue zoisite. The gem is still known from essentially one deposit, a few square kilometers in northern Tanzania.