zircon

It would come from the Arabic زرقون, zarqūn, "reddish orange". Etymol. and hist. 1789 [letter of December 25, 1788] fem. (crell in ann. chim., t. 1, p. 238: m. klaproth [...] just analyzed the zirkones, a kind of precious stone); 1790 masc. (ann. chim., t. 6, p. 1: the analysis of zir-kons [sic]). Borrowed from the German zirkon, created in 1783 by the German mineralogist a. g. werner and taken up by m. h. klaproth in 1789, cf. w. mettmann, zirkon und hyazinth in rom. forsch. t. 74 1962, pp. 125-126. The formation of the German zirkon remains obscure, see w. mettmann, loc. cit.