chrysosperm

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek χρυσός (khrusós, “gold”) + σπέρμα (spérma, “seed, semen”), equivalent to chryso- +‎ sperm.

Noun

chrysosperm (uncountable)

(alchemy, obsolete) The seed of gold; an alchemical means of creating gold.
- 1610 (first performance), Ben[jamin] Jonson, The Alchemist, London: […] Thomas Snodham, for Walter Burre, and are to be sold by Iohn Stepneth, […], published 1612, →OCLC, (please specify the Internet Archive page), (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
  
  Of your elixir, your lac Virginis, Your stone, your med'cine , and your chrysosperm
- 1857, Thomas (of Swarraton, armiger, pseud.), The Noble Traytour, page 232:
  How sir! When you have not tried my chrysosperm and marchesyte?
- 1893, “The Black Art”, in The Pall Mall Magazine, volume 1, page 54:
  This substance was the original principle of all matter, the alpha and omega, the general solvent, the universal menstruum, the mighty mastery, the great king, the fiery tincture, the helmeted hero, the bird of Hermes, the seal of Solomon, the powder of projection, the chrysosperm, the subject of the sages, the flower of the sun, the elemental soul, the perfect ruby, the red hyacinth, the fire of nature, the water of life, in a word, the philosopher's stone.
- 2007, Patrick Harpur, Mercurius, Or, the Marriage of Heaven & Earth, page 165:
  For our most excellent celestial fixed water will open up the fiery volatile body and draw out a secret running white sulphur which the philosophers call chrysosperm ['gold seed'], that is, the soul of the metals.
(poetic) Sunlight, which turns the world golden.
- 1904, John Davidson, Testaments: The testament of a prime minister, page 50:
  Of dusky light escaped the journeying clouds That hid the ample sun and left his beams A deeper hue of topaz, chrysosperm To milt the earth with harvest;
- 1909, John Davidson, “Liverpool Street Station”, in Fleet Street: And Other Poems, page 49:
  The chrysosperm in sunbeams pent A largesse squandered.