Spar (mineralogy)
Spar is an old mining or mineralogy term used to refer to crystals that have readily discernible faces. A spar will easily break or cleave into rhomboidal, cubical, or laminated fragments with smooth shiny surfaces.
The various spar minerals were a historical term among miners and alchemists for any nonmetallic mineral akin to gypsum, known in Old English as spærstān, spear stone, referring to its crystalline projections. Thus, the word spar in mineralogy has the same root as "spear," by way of comparison to gypsum, as a common natural crystal forming in spearlike projections.
Amongst miners the term "spar" today is frequently used alone to express any bright crystalline substance. Most frequently, spar describes easily cleaved, lightly colored nonmetallic minerals such as feldspar, calcite or baryte. Baryte (BaSO4), the main source of barium, is also called "heavy spar" (Greek "barys" means "heavy"). Calcite often forms the dogtooth spar crystals found in vugs and caves.
Spar
Spar or Spars may refer to:
Common meanings
In business
Vessels
SPAR or SPARS
Other uses
Spar (retailer)
Spar (Dutch pronunciation: [spɑr]), trademarked as SPAR, is a Dutch multinational retail chain and franchise with approximately 12,500 stores in 35 countries worldwide. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932 by retailer Adriaan van Well. Through its affiliate organisations, Spar operates through most European countries, parts of Africa, Asia and Oceania. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam.
Etymology
The name was originally DE SPAR, an acronym of the Dutch phrase Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig (English: through united co-operation everyone regularly profits). De Spar is Dutch for "The spruce", hence Spar's logo. As the organisation expanded across Europe, the name was abbreviated by dropping "DE".
Spar is also the root of the verb which means "to save [money]" in some Germanic (among them German) and Scandinavian languages.
There are some international naming variants:
Breath of Fire II
Breath of Fire II (Japanese: ブレス オブ ファイアII 使命の子, Hepburn: Buresu obu Faia Tsū: Shimei no Ko, Breath of Fire II: The Destined Child) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Capcom. First released in 1994, the game was licensed to Laguna for European release in 1996. It is the second entry in the Breath of Fire series. It was later ported to Game Boy Advance and re-released worldwide. The game has been rated by the ESRB for release on Wii's Virtual Console and was released in North America on August 27, 2007. Nintendo of Europe's website mistakenly announced it for release on July 27, 2007, but it was in fact released two weeks later, on August 10, 2007.
Unlike later installments in the series, Breath of Fire II is a direct sequel to Breath of Fire. Set 500 years after the original game, the story centers on an orphan named Ryu Bateson, whose family vanished mysteriously long ago. After his friend is falsely accused of a crime, Ryu embarks on a journey to clear his name.
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