Zinc has been used by humans for thousands of years. But for a long time, people didn’t know what they were working with!
Archaeological finds show that zinc was used to make brass as early as 1300 BCE in Greece and, later, Rome. However, it is likely that zinc only came to be separated and purified as a distinct metal starting around 1100 CE in India.
In 1746, German chemist Andreas Marggraf separated zinc from calamine—a zinc ore historically used in medicines. You may have used calamine lotion for poison ivy and other rashes. Marggraf documented the process in detail, which is why he generally gets the credit for discovering zinc in the West (even though four years earlier, British chemist William Champion had patented a process for separating zinc).
Although researchers are confident that the word “zinc” comes from the German zink, nobody is quite sure why the element took this name. One theory holds that zink comes from zinke, meaning “jagged” or “tooth-like,” perhaps in reference to the pointy appearance of zinc crystals.