stylistic:style_transfer
Etymology

Nitre, or potassium nitrate, because of its early and global use and production, has many names.

As for nitrate, Hebrew and Egyptian words for it had the consonants n-t-r, indicating likely cognation in the Greek nitron, which was Latinised to nitrum or nitrium. Thence Old French had niter and Middle English nitre. By the 15th century, Europeans referred to it as saltpetre, specifically Indian saltpetre (Chilean saltpetre is sodium nitrate) and later as nitrate of potash, as the chemistry of the compound was more fully understood.

The Arabs called it "Chinese snow" (Arabic: ثلج الصين, romanized: thalj al-ṣīn) as well as bārūd (بارود), a term of uncertain origin that later came to mean gunpowder. It was called "Chinese salt" by the Iranians/Persians or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" (Persian: نمک شوره چينی namak shūra chīnī). The Tiangong Kaiwu, published in the 17th century by members of the Qing dynasty, detailed the production of gunpowder and other useful products from nature.