Things I Remember From High School Chemistry Class, part I: Silcone is not silicon. Wikipedia explains. ]Silicone is often mistakenly referred to as "silicon". Although silicones contain silicon atoms, they are not made up exclusively of silicon, and have completely different physical characteristics from elemental silicon. The word "silicone" is derived from ketone. Dimethylsilicone and dimethyl ketone (a.k.a. acetone) have analogous formulas, thus it was surmised incorrectly that they have analogous structures. The same terminology is used for compounds such as silane (an analogue of methane). A true silicone group with a double bond between oxygen and silicon does not exist (see figure). Polysiloxanes are called "silicone" due to early mistaken assumptions about their structure.