Bùsǐ zhī yào 不死之藥 "drug of deathlessness" was another early name for the elixir of immortality. Many Chinese elixir names are compounds of dan, such as jīndān 金丹 (with "gold") meaning "golden elixir elixir of immortality potable gold" and xiāndān 仙丹 (with " Daoist immortal") "elixir of immortality panacea", and shéndān 神丹 (with "spirit god") "divine elixir". "mineral powder on a stretched filter-cloth" (Needham and Lu)."placed in a tray or palette to be used as red pigment" (Wang Hongyuan 王宏源)."the contents of a square receptacle" ( Bernhard Karlgren)."the crucible of the Taoist alchemists" ( Léon Wieger).jǐng 井 "well" represents the mine from which the cinnabar is taken" ( Shuowen Jiezi).
Early scripts combine a 丶 dot or ⼀ stroke (depicting a piece of cinnabar) in the middle of a surrounding frame, which is said to represent: 1600–1046 BCE) and bronzeware script and seal script from the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BCE), paleographers disagree about the graphic origins of the logograph 丹 and its ancient variants ? and ?. Īlthough the word dan 丹 "cinnabar red" frequently occurs in oracle script from the late Shang Dynasty (c. The * t- initial and * t- or * k- doublets indicate that Old Chinese borrowed this item. Īccording to the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, the etymology of Modern Standard Chinese dān from Old Chinese *tān (< * tlan ?) 丹 "red vermillion cinnabar", gān 矸 in dāngān 丹矸 from * tân-kân (< * tlan-klan ?) "cinnabar vermillion ore", and zhān from * tan 旃 "a red flag" derive from Proto-Kam-Sui * h-lan "red" or Proto-Sino-Tibetan * tja-n or * tya-n "red". "cinnabar sand") was anciently used to produce the pigment vermilion ( zhūhóng 朱紅) and the element mercury ( shuǐyín 水銀 "watery silver" or gǒng 汞). The red mineral cinnabar ( dānshā 丹砂 lit. Outside of Chinese cultural contexts, English elixir poisoning usually refers to accidental contamination, such as the 1937 elixir sulfanilamide mass poisoning in the United States.ĭān 丹 "cinnabar vermillion elixir alchemy" is the keyword for Chinese immortality elixirs. In modern usage, elixir is a pharmaceutical term for "A sweetened aromatic solution of alcohol and water, serving as a vehicle for medicine". Hence adopted as a name for quack medicines" (e.g., Daffy's Elixir) and "The quintessence or soul of a thing its kernel or secret principle". The word was figuratively extended to mean "A sovereign remedy for disease. Elixir originated in medieval European alchemy meaning "A preparation by the use of which it was sought to change metals into gold" ( elixir stone or philosopher's stone) or "A supposed drug or essence with the property of indefinitely prolonging life" ( elixir of life). The etymology of English elixir derives from Medieval Latin elixir, from Arabic إكسير ( al-ʾiksīr), probably from Ancient Greek ξήριον ( xḗrion "a desiccative powder for wounds").