Anatase is one of the three mineral forms of titanium dioxide, the other two being brookite and rutile. It is always found as small, isolated and sharply developed crystals, and like rutile, a more commonly occurring modification of titanium dioxide, it crystallizes in the tetragonal system; but, although the degree of symmetry is the same for both, there is no relation between the interfacial angles of the two minerals, except in the prism-zone of 45° and 90°. The common pyramid of anatase, parallel to the faces of which there are perfect cleavages, has an angle over the polar edge of 82°9', the corresponding angle of rutile being 56°52½'. It was on account of this steeper pyramid of anatase that the mineral was named, by René Just Haüy in 1801, from the Greek anatasis, "extension", the vertical axis of the crystals being longer than in rutile. There are also important differences between the physical characters of anatase and rutile: the former is less hard (5.5–6 vs. 6-6.5 Mohs) and dense (specific gravity about 3.9 vs. 4.2). Also, anatase is optically negative whereas rutile is positive, and its luster is even more strongly adamantine or metallic-adamantine than that of rutile.

Anatase is one of the three mineral forms of titanium dioxide, the other two being brookite and rutile. It is always found as small, isolated and sharply developed crystals, and like rutile, a more commonly occurring modification of titanium dioxide, it crystallizes in the tetragonal system; but, although the degree of symmetry is the same for both, there is no relation between the interfacial angles of the two minerals, except in the prism-zone of 45° and 90°. The common pyramid of anatase, parallel to the faces of which there are perfect cleavages, has an angle over the polar edge of 82°9', the corresponding angle of rutile being 56°52½'. It was on account of this steeper pyramid of anatase that the mineral was named, by René Just Haüy in 1801, from the Greek anatasis, "extension", the vertical axis of the crystals being longer than in rutile. There are also important differences between the physical characters of anatase and rutile: the former is less hard (5.5–6 vs. 6-6.5 Mohs) and dense (specific gravity about 3.9 vs. 4.2). Also, anatase is optically negative whereas rutile is positive, and its luster is even more strongly adamantine or metallic-adamantine than that of rutile.