Other forms: silicones
Silicone is a soft rubbery material that stays flexible when hot. Silicone sealant, a silicone mould, silicone bakeware.
It is heat-resistant, water-repellent and does not perish the way rubber does, which is why silicone seals baths, lines baking trays and insulates cables. It is not silicon, the hard element in chips — one letter apart and completely different substances.
1nounsiliconeA soft rubbery material that stays flexible when hot.
“She bought a silicone cake tin that bends so the cake slides straight out.”
silicone is a material.
From silicon plus -one, named in the nineteenth century when chemists were seeking a silicon version of a ketone.
Latin
silex — flint, silica
English
silicon
English, today
silicone
From silicon + one. Originally obtained by the attempted synthesis of the silicon equivalent of a ketone. silicon comes from silicium + -on. coined by Q902546 as a modification of the earlier name silicium, from the stem of Latin silex (“flint, silica”) + -on from carbon.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA