Definition of "cyanate" []

• A salt or ester of cyanic acid. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "As far back as 1828, Friedrich Wöhler proved the point when he synthesized urea during his attempts to make ammonium cyanate, demonstrating that compounds once considered the provenance of life (like urea) could be made from ordinary inorganic materials, all derived from the detritus of spent stars."
• "In 1828, a Berlin scientist named Friedrich Wöhler had sparked a metaphysical storm in science by boiling ammonium cyanate, a plain, inorganic salt, and creating urea, a chemical typically produced by the kidneys."
• "The friendship between Liebig and Wöhler began in 1825 after they amicably resolved a dispute over two substances that had apparently the same composition — cyanic acid and fulminic acid — but very different characteristics: the silver compound of fulminic acid, investigated by Liebig, was explosive, whereas silver cyanate, as Wöhler found, was not."