Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Vanadium

Vanadium , noun

[New Latin, from Icelandic Vanadīs, a surname of the Scandinavian goddess Freya.]

(Chemistry) A rare element of the nitrogen-phosphorus group, found combined, in vanadates, in certain minerals, and reduced as an infusible, grayish-white metallic powder. It is intermediate between the metals and the non-metals, having both basic and acid properties. Symbol V (or Vd, rarely). Atomic weight 50.94 (C12=12.000).