Definition of "cobalt" [co•balt]

• A hard, brittle metallic element, found associated with nickel, silver, lead, copper, and iron ores and resembling nickel and iron in appearance. It is used chiefly for magnetic alloys, high-temperature alloys, and in the form of its salts for blue glass and ceramic pigments. Atomic number 27; atomic weight 58.9332; melting point 1,495°C; boiling point 2,900°C; specific gravity 8.9; valence 2, 3. See Table at element. (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.

• "In sixth grade, I started my own class newspaper, which my friends and I typed laboriously on the old fashionedmimeographsheets (the kind with the blue backing which left those same stubby fingers smudged in cobalt ink)."
• "Like the plate, the walls were trimmed in cobalt blue and painted a dusty gold."
• "But if a few kilos of plutonium wrapped in cobalt finds its way to Mecca as the nursery schools of Tel Aviv are turned into Beslan *, I am sure there would be a little relief, perhaps some joy in the new Washington I visualize here, and perhaps in Berlin, too."