the.com/enamel
the hardest thing your body makes, and it can never make it again.
means A glossy, hard coating — whether the mineralized layer covering your teeth or a fused glass-like surface baked onto metal or pottery for protection and shine.
from From Old French 'esmail,' meaning a glossy coating fused onto metal, which traces back to a Frankish word related to old Germanic terms for melting or smelting — fitting, since true enamel is glass powder melted onto a surface. The 'en-' prefix (meaning 'on' or 'in') was added later in English, giving us 'enamel': the thing melted on. The dental sense came centuries afterward, borrowing the word for that hard, glassy tooth-shell.
- hardest tissue
- Harder than bone, the toughest material in your body
- no regrowth
- Has no living cells, so it never heals
- mostly mineral
- Around 96 percent crystalline calcium phosphate
- see-through
- Translucent; tooth color comes from dentin beneath
- acid foe
- Dissolves below pH 5.5, no exceptions
tooth enamel — hardest substance in human body, 96% hydroxyapatite mineral
porcelain enamel — vitreous coating on cast iron cookware and bathtubs since 1800s