amalgam

noun

amal·​gam ə-ˈmal-gəm 

1

: a mixture of different elements

an amalgam of musical forms

The crowd was an amalgam of young and old.

2

: an alloy of mercury with another metal that is solid or liquid at room temperature according to the proportion of mercury present and is used especially in making tooth cements

Dentists have used silver-colored mercury amalgam (mercury mixed, about 50/50, with a combination of silver, tin, copper and other metals) to fill cavities for at least 150 years.

—Jennifer Huget

Synonyms

• admixture
• alloy
• amalgamation
• blend
• cocktail
• combination
• composite
• compound
• conflation
• emulsion
• fusion
• intermixture
• meld
• mix
• mixture
• synthesis

Examples of amalgam in a Sentence

a church that is an amalgam of traditional and modern architectural styles

Recent Examples on the Web

Not only does each cremation use a lot of energy in the form of natural gas, but toxic mercury vapor also gets liberated from old-style amalgam tooth fillings. —Collin Blinder, The Mercury News, 28 Jan. 2025

The term is an amalgam of two of the three languages spoken in Corsica (Corsu, French, and Italian). —Sara Lieberman, Travel + Leisure, 21 Jan. 2025

The property is an amalgam of lush, untamed vegetation, and is less than a half mile from the mainland. —Fanny Guénon Des Mesnards, Architectural Digest, 18 Jan. 2025

Silver Amalgam Fillings Silver amalgam fillings consist of a combination of metals that include silver, mercury, tin, and copper. —Anna Giorgi, Verywell Health, 10 Jan. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English amalgam, malgame "alloy of mercury with another metal," borrowed from Medieval Latin amalgama, borrowed from Arabic al maljam, al muljam, from al "the" + maljam, muljam, perhaps borrowed from Greek málagma "emollient," from malak-, stem of malássein "to soften" (derivative of malakós "soft') + -ma, resultative noun suffix — more at mollify

Note: The origin of Medieval Latin amalgama has been the subject of speculation since at least the nineteenth century, with no conclusive results. The orientalist Marcel Devic (Dictionnaire étymologique des mots français d'origine orientale, Paris, 1876), based on a supposed variant algame, constructed an Arabic source which he rendered as ʽamal al-jamaʽa, with ʽamal translated as "practice (opposed to theory), work" ("pratique, œuvre") and jamaʽa as "conjunction, meeting" ("conjonction, réunion"), perhaps as an alteration of mujāmʽa, the whole meaning "the act of consummating a marriage" ("l'acte de consommation du mariage"). This, according to Devic, would be an appropriate alchemical metaphor for the joining of mercury with another metal. His etymology has been accepted, in the twentieth century, by the Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch and Trésor de la langue française. The difficulty with this hypothesis, however—as already noted by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884—is that no such collocation has ever been located in an Arabic text. A genuine Arabic predecessor of amalgama was pointed out by Julius Ruska in an alchemical text that he entitles "Book of the Missive of Jafʽar al-Ṣādiq on the Science of Art and the Noble Stone" ("Buch des Sendschreibens Ǵafʽar alṢādiqs über die Wissenschaft der Kunst und des edlen Steins," in Arabische Alchemisten II. Ǵafʽar alṢādiq, der sechste Imām, Heidelberg, 1924, pp. 72-73). The word used is muljam, while the process of amalgamating is iljam. Ruska notes that muljam in the sense "amalgam" is also found in the Arabic dictionary Lisān al-ʽArab by Ibn Manẓūr. Since the word cannot be parsed as the derivative of an Arabic root that is at all semantically apt, Ruska returns to the idea that it is a borrowing of Greek málagma "emollient" (also, in Latin texts, "poultice"), hypothesizing that it was borrowed as a medical and alchemical term via a Syriac intermediary. The argument against this conjecture has been that the semantic fit is poor, as a word meaning "emollient" or "poultice" has little evident connection to mercury alloys. Hence, if the Greek hypothesis is correct, a significant element still appears to lack elucidation.

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Kids Definition

amalgam

noun

amal·​gam ə-ˈmal-gəm 

1

: an alloy of mercury with some other metal or metals that is used especially for tooth filling

2

: a combination or mixture of different elements

an amalgam of fact and fiction

Medical Definition

amalgam

noun

amal·​gam ə-ˈmal-gəm 

: an alloy of mercury with another metal that is solid or liquid at room temperature according to the proportion of mercury present and is used especially in making tooth cements