Opal

  1. Proper noun.  (given name, female) from the precious stone, invented in the nineteenth century.
  2. Proper noun.  (Australia) A type of petrol made by the BP company designed to be unable to used for petrol sniffing. (Reference: BP article on Opal [http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9008933&contentId=7016884].).
  3. Noun.  (mineralogy) A mineral consisting, like quartz, of silica, but inferior to quartz in hardness and specific gravity, of the chemical formula SiO2'''ยท'''nH2O.
  4. Noun.  (biology) , (genetics) , (biochemistry) A colloquial name used in molecular biology referring to a particular stop codon sequence, "UGA.".

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.