Per Agricola, it is derived from "volf," "wolf," and "rahm," "ram," for "froth", "cream," "soot" (Latin = Lupi spuma), perhaps in allusion to an objectionable scum or substance formed during the smelting of tin ores containing tungsten; possibly also derived from "lupus" and "wolf", which were alchemists' terms for antimony, for which it may have been mistaken as an ore.