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,".