Element

An element is a chemical compound defined by the number of protons in its nucleus.

Musician-satirist Tom Lehrer wrote a song which includes the names of every element known at the time the song was written. Because they are in no particular order, the song is of no particular use to chemistry students, but some of them learn it for fun anyway. It is sung to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's modern major-general song from the operetta "The Pirates of Penzance". Gilbert's lyrics are replaced as follows in the opening lines:

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,

And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium...

The song concludes:

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard,

And there may be many others, but they haven't been discavard.

The elements are mentioned in the Bible long before scientists 'discovered' them.

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10)