-_stə̇n noun
( -s )
Etymology: Swedish from tung heavy + sten stone; akin to Old Norse thungr heavy, thīsl pole, Old English thīsl, thīxl pole, shaft, Old High German dīhsala, Latin temo pole, shaft, Old Slavic tęgnǫti to drag, pull, Sanskrit tanoti he stretches, and to Old Norse steinn stone — more at thin , stone
1. : a gray-white heavy high-melting ductile hard polyvalent metallic element that resembles chromium and molybdenum in many of its properties, that is found combined in scheelite, wolframite, and other minerals and is extracted by the successive formation of an alkali metal tungstate, tungstic acid, and tungsten trioxide, reduction of the trioxide with hydrogen to a gray-black metal powder, and compaction by powder metallurgy to massive metal, and that is used in the pure form chiefly for electrical purposes (as for filaments for incandescent lamps and contact points) and with other substances in hardening steel and other alloys and in making carbides — called also wolfram : symbol W ; see element table
2. obsolete
a. : scheelite
b. : wolframite