orichalcum means A valuable yellow metal known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans; now sometimes interpreted as referring to a natural alloy of gold and copper, and sometimes treated as a mythical substance. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 90 out of 100.
Why this word is great
ORICHALCUM — [Noun] A precious yellow metal of antiquity, often considered a gold-copper alloy or a mythical perfected brass. From Latin orichalcum, from Ancient Greek ὀρείχαλκος (oreíkhalkos), from ὄρος (óros, "mountain") + χαλκός (khalkós, "copper"). Unlike brass—a common, workaday alloy of known composition—or electrum—a specific, natural amalgam of gold and silver—orichalcum is a chimeric substance shimmering beyond the reach of metallurgy. It is the gilded sheen on Plato's sunken Atlantean pillars, the ambiguous gleam of a corroded coin that defies assay, and the untarnished luster of a hero's vambrace in epic verse—not merely an alloy, but the archetype of a metal too perfect to survive, its true value residing in the permanence of its absence.
noun
- A valuable yellow metal known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans; now sometimes interpreted as referring to a natural alloy of gold and copper, and sometimes treated as a mythical substance.“Many walls were coated with metals – with brass, tin and a red ^([sic]) metal, unknown to us, called orichalcum.”