radium

The chemical element (symbol Ra) with an atomic number of 88. It is a soft, shiny and silvery radioactive alkaline earth metal.countableuncountable

• Well, remember how the children of the State Orphanage became mysteriously ill? The doctors diagnosed it as radium poisoning, but how it happened was a first class mystery to them. There's no radium factory within miles of the orphanage.
• The U.S. radium dial painters of the 1920s comprised an early cohort of several thousand workers at increased risk of developing radiation induced cancers.

The chemical element (symbol Ra) with an atomic number of 88. It is a soft, shiny and silvery radioactive alkaline earth metal.; An atom of this element.countable

A type of cloth woven from silk or synthetic yarn, often with a shiny appearance.countabledateduncountable

• City retailers are doing well with high-class radiums printed in bright greens, brilliant purples and strong yellows. Such are the high novelties.
• Radium satins will also be used extensively in the spring season.

To treat (a tumour, etc.) with radium.ambitransitiveobsolete

• The problem that we have to face in radiuming tumors is very complicated. [...] [T]he problem of distribution is to distribute throughout the territory irradiated an even dose, and we have found that that is a very difficult thing.