Zinc is a bluish-white metal, and you mostly meet it as a coating. The dull grey skin on a watering can, on nails, on a farm gate, on the crash barrier by the motorway, put there so the steel underneath does not rust.
Galvanised is the word for steel that has been given that coat. Melt zinc together with copper and you get brass, which is why door handles and trumpets exist. It is also something your body needs a small amount of, so you find it in oysters and pumpkin seeds and in the tablets people take when a cold is coming. Zinc oxide is the thick white cream a lifeguard wears on the nose. On the periodic table it is element number 30, symbol Zn, and it is said zink, with the c silent in effect.
1nounzincA bluish-white metal, element number 30, used to coat steel against rust and to make brass.
“Zinc protects the steel underneath, which is why galvanised nails last for years.”
zinc is a metal.
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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA