Emily Dickinson Lexicon

MIN'I-UM, n. [L.]

Lead exposed to air while melting is covered with a gray dusky pellicle. This taken off and agitated becomes a greenish gray powder, inclining to yellow. This oxyd, separated by sifting from the grains of lead which it contaans, and exposed to a more intense heat, takes a deep yellow color, and in this state it is called massicot. The latter, slowly heated, takes a beautiful red color, and is called minium. It is a salt composed of two equivalents of protoxyd of lead, with one equivalent of the deutoxyd. Fourcroy.