Scheele's green

Schee·le's green

noun \ˈshā-ləz-, -lēz-\

Definition of SCHEELE'S GREEN

: a poisonous yellowish green pigment consisting essentially of a copper arsenite and used especially as an insecticide

Biographical Note for SCHEELE'S GREEN

Schee·le \ˈshā-lə\ Carl Wilhelm (1742–1786), Swedish chemist. Scheele is most famous as the chemist who is now credited with discovering oxygen at least two years before Joseph Priestley. (Priestley had long been accepted as the original discoverer.) Scheele spent his life as an apothecary, working in his small chemical laboratory in his spare time. He first described Scheele's green in an article on arsenic published in 1775.