calx
(kælks)
Forms: 5 cals, 5–7 calce, 7 callixe, calxe, 8 calix, 7– calx. pl. calces (formerly also calxes).
[L. calx, calc-em lime; applied in an extended sense to substances produced in the same way as quick-lime.]
1. A term of the alchemists and early chemists for a powder or friable substance produced by thoroughly burning or roasting (‘calcining’) a mineral or metal, so as to consume or drive off all its volatile parts, as lime is burned in a kiln.
The calx was formerly taken as the essential substance or ‘alcohol’ of the crude mineral after all the grosser parts had been dispelled. The ‘calx’ of a metal was supposed to be the result of the expulsion of ‘phlogiston’; in reality it was usually the metallic oxide, but in some cases the metal itself in a state of sublimation.
| c 1460 Bk. Quintessence 7 Caste..cals of..gold..in wiyn..and ȝe schule haue ȝoure licour..bettir gilt. 1605 Timme Quersit. i. xiii. 56 The black feces..being reduced..into a calxe. Ibid. ii. v. 123 Put fire thereunto..untill the earth..is well calcined..Divide this thy callixe. 1610 B. Jonson Alch. ii. v, Sub. How do you sublime him? Fac. With the calce of Egg-shells. 1612 Woodall Surg. Mate Wks. (1653) 268 Calcination is solution of bodies into Calx or Alcool. 1670 Phil. Trans. V. 2042 Nor reduced into a calx but by a strong fire, by which it will turn into a substance like unslaked lime. a 1691 Boyle Wks. I. 719 All brought into calces or powders that are white. 1756 C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. 3 Lead by calcination..becomes a red calx or mineral earth. Ibid. Metals deprived of..phlogiston..are reduced to calces. 1781 J. T. Dillon Trav. Spain 233 Metallic calxes. 1791 Hamilton Berthollet's Dyeing I. i. i. i. 7 Oxygen may be separated from some oxyds or metallic calces. 1812 Sir H. Davy Chem. Philos. 23 Having ascertained the increase of weight of lead during its conversion into calx. 1822 J. Imison Sc. & Art II. 20 The calx of tin, now the oxide of tin. |
| fig. 1799 Southey Nondescr. iii. Wks. III. 63 Some mass for the poor souls that bleach, And burn away the calx of their offences In that great Purgatory crucible. |
† 2. Sometimes in Latin sense ‘lime’:
esp. in
calx vive,
calcevive (L.
calx viva, F.
chaux vive) quick-lime.
Obs.| 1581 Styward Mart. Discip. i. 12 They ought to haue..Calx viue, Lint seede Oile, etc. 1641 French Distill. v. (1651) 129 Make a strong Lixivium of Calx vive. 1652 Ashmole Theat. Chem. Brit. 116 Our true Calcevive..our Ferment of our Bread. 1834 Brit. Husb. I. 439 Calx is lime combined with acids. |
3. Eton School slang. [Another L. sense of
calx, ‘the goal, anciently marked with lime or chalk’.] The goal-line (at foot-ball).
| 1864 Daily Tel. 1 Dec., The Collegers were over-weighted..and the Oppidans managed to get the ball down into their calx several times. |