Magnet, the name given to loadstone as first discovered in Magnesia, a town in Asia Minor; also to a piece of iron, nickel, or cobalt having similar properties, notably the power of setting itself in a definite direction; also a coil of wire carrying an electric current, because such a coil really possesses the properties characteristic of an iron magnet.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Magna Græca * Magnetic Induction