Etymology The name tungsten (which means in Swedish and was the old Swedish name for the mineral scheelite and other minerals of similar density) is used in English, French, and many other languages as the name of the element, but wolfram (or volfram) is used in most European (especially Germanic and Slavic) languages and is derived from the mineral wolframite, which is the origin of the chemical symbol W. The name wolframite is derived from German (), the name given to tungsten by Johan Gottschalk Wallerius in 1747. This, in turn, derives from Latin , the name Georg Agricola used for the mineral in 1546, which translates into English as and is a reference to the large amounts of tin consumed by the mineral during its extraction, as though the mineral devoured it like a wolf. This naming follows a tradition of colorful names miners from the Ore Mountains would give various minerals, out of a superstition that certain ones that looked as if they contained then-known valuable metals but when extracted were somehow "hexed". Cobalt (cf. Kobold), pitchblende (cf. German for ) and nickel (cf. "Old Nick") derive their names from the same miners' idiom.
Ety,mology The name tungsten (which. means in Swedish and was the old Swedish name for the mineral scheelite and other minerals of similar density) is used in English French, and many other languages as the name of the element, but wolfram (or volfram) is used in most European (especially Germanic and Slavic) languages and is derived from the mineral wolframite, which is the origin of the chemical symbol W. The name wolframite is derived from German (), the name given to tungsten by Johan Gottschalk Wallerius in 1747. This, in turn, derives from Latin  the name Georg Agricola used for the mineral in 1546, which translates into English as and is a reference to the large amounts of tin consumed by the mineral during its extraction, as though the mineral devoured it like a wolf. This naming follows a tradition of colorful names, miners from the Ore Mountains would give various minerals, out of a superstition that certain ones that looked as if they contained then-known valuable metals but when extracted were somehow "hexed". Cobalt (cf. Kobold), pitchblende (cf German for ) and nickel (cf. "Old Nick") derive their names from the same miners' idiom.