Min. [Named (in Fr.) by Beudant, 1832, as if f. Gr. ξένος strange + τιμή honor, but app. in error for *kenotime, f. Gr. κενός empty, vain: see quot. below.] A native phosphate of yttrium.
1844. Dana, Min. (1868), 528. Xenotime…. Lustre resinous Color yellowish-brown, reddish-brown, hair-brown, flesh-red, grayish-white [etc.]…. Beudant named the species xenotime (apparently from ξενός, stranger to, and τιμή, honor), but in the next line gives the derivation ‘κενος, vain, et τιμή, honneur,’ as if the word were kenotime, and adds … that this name is intended to recall the fact that the mineral was erroneously supposed by Berzelius … to contain a new metal.
1907. Athenæum, 20 April, 479/1. M. Jean Becquerel … has been engaged in magneto-optical researches…. Most of his experiments have been made with crystals of xenotime (a magnetic phosphate of yttrium).
