talcum

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a fine grained mineral having a soft soapy feel and consisting of hydrated magnesium silicate; used in a variety of products including talcum powder
noun a toilet powder made of purified talc and usually scented; absorbs excess moisture

From talc + -um, from Medieval Latin talcum, from Arabic طَلْق (ṭalq).

Tannaform, 1 drachm; talcum, 2 drachms; lycopodium, 30 grains. — Practical Mechanics for Boys, James Slough Zerbe
Its foci were Sylvia Huntington, the beautiful multi-millionairess, and Richard Benham, nephew of Minim, the Cosmetic King and head of the Talcum Trust. — The Real Adventure, Henry Kitchell Webster
There was less real significance for him in the beauty of his first home than in the fact that they two had a bath-room of their own; that he no longer had to go, clad in a drab bath-robe, laden with shaving materials and a towel and talcum powder and a broken hand-mirror and a tooth-brush, like a perambulating drug-store toilet-counter, down a boarding-house hall to that modified hall bedroom with a tin tub which his doctor-landlord had called a bath-room. — The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life, Sinclair Lewis

talc

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