Picture this: I’m curled up in bed, cuddling my blåhaj,1 just thinking about the many ways to represent the vowel /i/ in English orthography.2 Suddenly, a rather solicitous thought encroached on my blissful musings. Why is it called ‘oxygen?’ Hydrogen is so called for the formation of water, so there must be some parallel, right? Unable to shake the hold such worries had taken on my mind, I turned to Wiktionary. “Ah,” I thought, “of course3 it’s ‘ὀξύς’ again!” Alas, a side-note in a previous entry had returned before me to strike once more. Curiosity fulfilled, I could return to my unsleeping snuggles and… wait a second. Hold the fuck on. What does ‘nitrogen’ mean!?
The answer to this isn’t technically complicated. Sure, it was difficult to develop the full story from the knowledge I had on hand while laying in bed, but the etymology is fairly straightforward. You could find a single sentence explaining the whole thing on Wiktionary:
From French nitrogène (coined by Jean-Antoine Chaptal), corresponding to nitro- + -gen. See niter.
It’s shocking that I didn’t think of ‘niter’ while trying to figure this out, sure; however, if you’re anything like me, this sentence asks more questions than it answers.
Contrary to what may be implied by the presentation of this coinage, Chaptal did not derive the term ’nitrogene gas’ directly from an association with niter, but from the existing terminology of nitric acid, nitrates, nitrites, &c.:4
“[…] Nothing more is necessary than to substitute to [Azotic Gas] a denomination which is derived from the general system of use: and I have presumed to propose that of Nitrogene Gas. In the first place, it is deduced from the exclusive and [characteristic] property of the gas, which forms the radical of the [nitric] acid.”5
Which, of course, necessitates that the etymology of the prefix nitro- predates this assertion. Any hopes of an easy explanation by way of Wiktionary are quickly dashed as it lacks any meaningful etymological sections for nitric acid, nitrate,6 nitrite, and there is only the relevant Ancient Greek root of nítron (νίτρον) given for nitro- itself.
Chaptal makes a point in his proposition that he is merely righting a wrong within the contemporary nomenclature, of course, so perhaps the source of that very nomenclature would elucidate the matter. That was my optimistic belief, anyway.
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was a chemist of some renown who, along with Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François de Fourcroy, submitted Method of Chymical Nomenclature (Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique) to the French Academy of Sciences in April 1787.7 This seemed as good a place as any to further my investigations as the foundation of the nomenclature. It is also the origin of the name ‘azote’ (and ‘azotic gas’) which Chaptal sought to supplant:8
“The denomination of phlogisticated air has been abandoned by the greater number of chymists; who thought that it expressed more than it ought, even a long time before it was known to express an error. […] It was not possible by a single word to express the double property of forming the radical of a certain acid, and assisting in the production of an alkali […] we thought it were the better way to derive the denomination from its other property […] not to maintain the existence of animals, to be really non-vital; […] therefore we have denominated it azot from the Greek privative α and ζωή life.”9
The “certain acid” here refers to nitrous acid, which clarifies that the name ‘nitrogen’ was deliberately eschewed at this point. More presciently, as is later stated with its listing among examples for which they “had much less to do in reducing their appellations to our systematical rules,”10 nitrous acid had been so dubbed prior to this work. There are some remaining gains, however, in that ‘nitric acid,’ ‘nitrate,’ and ‘nitrite’ are coined herein.11 ‘Nitric acid’ is described as a more oxygen saturated form of nitrous acid; ‘nitrates’12 and ‘nitrites’13 then are salts formed by nitric and nitrous acid respectively.
Curiously, Lavoisier et al. maintained nitre as a synonym for the nitrate of potash (potassium nitrate) or saltpeter.14 This is so notable for the origin of ‘niter’ being in the term nitron, which typically denoted soda ash. Soda, as well as potash, were early subjects of Humphry Davy’s electrolysis experiments, leading him to isolate their bases as the metals which he gave names derived from their origins rather than properties: ‘sodium’ and ‘potassium.’15
To digress further, the chemical which was at the time of Lavoisier et al. referred to as ‘nitrous acid’ is now known to us as ‘nitric acid,’ and what they dubbed as ‘nitric acid’ is now ‘nitrogen dioxide.’16
So, who came up with the name ‘nitrous acid,’ if anyone? The term evidently spawned somewhere in the mid-17th century, as alchemy transmogrified into chemistry. Previously, the same chemical was termed either aqua fortis (lit. ‘strong water’) or spirit of nitre.
In an attempt to locate the coinage, or at least earliest usages, of the term, I turned to A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles for some direction. Its earliest example for ‘nitrous acid’ is Nehemiah Grew’s The Anatomy of Plants,17 The phrase does appear herein, though as a reactant with spirit of nitre,18 which implies that Grew was simply describing an acid that is nitrous. John French, too, described an acid in such a manner as early as the 1653 edition of The Art of Distillation, narrating it as a source of nitrous salts.19
Perhaps we ought to again try to move backward. William Lewis’s 1746 A Course of Practical Chemistry seemingly uses ‘nitrous acid’ as a name for a chemical a handful of times.20 Usage by Richard Boulton in 1714 appears less specific, that is more often using ‘nitrous’ as an adjective, yet still explicit enough to warrant note.21 The most explicit reference to the phrase as a term itself I could find was from Gideon Harvey in 1675:22
“Some use may be made of describing Acids by names derived from the Acids in Minerals, whereunto the Acids in the Body bear a proportion and resemblance, […] In [this] manner other Acids may be termed nitrous, aluminous, &c.”23
It’s likely from all this that the exact phrase was never specifically coined, and that its explicit usage was merely born of the language at the time. One could further explore that the adjective ‘nitrous’ (meaning ‘pertaining to nitre’) was itself a result of the change from Middle to Modern English in the 17th c., having previously been written ‘nitrose.’24 That, in turn, brings us back to (Middle) French nitreux, which composed the term Lavoisier et al. were actually referencing: acide nitreux. As the relevance of this section is already questionable, I’ll leave any further discussion on that particular phrase as an exercise to the reader.
Speaking of French terminology, Chaptal’s nitrogène failed to gain traction in France25 where azote remains the dominant term to this day. To establish a better foundation for a point I’d like to get to in a bit, we ought to discuss how this French azote and English ‘nitrogen’ proliferated throughout other languages.
Let’s start with Dutch, where nitrogen is called stikstof, whence stikken (“to suffocate”) and stof (“matter”). English Wiktionary is contradictory about the etymology, claiming the Dutch stikstof is borrowed from the German Stickstoff, then states that Stickstoff was introduced by Christopher Girtanner in 1791, borrowing from stikstof which was coined in 1789. Dutch Wiktionary reaffirms the latter assertion;26 whereas German Wiktionary speaks nothing to the former, only describing its origin as “chemischer Stoff, der Flammen ersticken kann” (“chemical matter/substance that can suffocate/extinguish flames”).27
That the name supposedly originates from a property of extinguishing fire is rather curious. The Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen also describes Stickstoff as “den Feuer erstickenden Bestandtiel der Luft” (“the fire extinguishing component of air”) while citing Girtanner in 1791.28 Dutch Wiktionary goes so far as to describe the term as a translation of the French azote,29 but you’ll again note that Lavoisier et al.’s reasoning for their choice of term was that the gas is “non-vital,” which speaks nothing of flame. Perhaps this mismatch can be reconciled by turning to Girtanner after all:30
“Azote. | Salpeterstoff od. Stickstoff”
Alright then. The modern term is clearly offered as an alternative here, with Salpeterstoff being the main coinage. Parallels can be drawn, then, between Salpeterstoff and nitrogène as derivations upon saltpeter, as well as Stickstoff and azote as statements on the non-vital functions of the gaseous form. Regardless, no explicit reasonings were given by the author for these translations.
Girtanner himself continued to prefer Salpeterstoff, using it exclusively in a later book on chemistry,31 whereas a later dictionary lists the synonyms in order of Stickstoff, Azote, then Salpeterstoff.32 As far as I am able to determine, this change was simply a matter of popular taste lacking in any major driving force as with ‘nitrogen’ over azote.
Back to the Dutch stikstof. This descended into Japanese through the typical avenue of Rangaku. The scholar Udagawa Yôan (宇田川 榕菴) offered three calques for different names of nitrogen in the Appendix of Far-Western Medical and Notable Things and Thoughts33 (遠西医方名物考補遺, Ensei Ihô Meibutukô Hoi), circa 1834:34
The first of these is the extant term in Japanese. The second is odd, as the term levenberovendstof does not appear in any other material I have seen. And the last feels most in line with the purported meaning of stikstof, yet bears no relation to salpeterstof which it was listed aside in the text.
Tisso further descended via orthographic borrowing into Korean as the term ‘질소’ (jilso), retaining the hanja form of ‘窒素.’ The same process led to the dialectical Taiwanese term ‘窒素’ (zhìsù); however, the mainstream Chinese name for the element is ‘氮’ (dàn), a phono-semantic compound of ‘气’ (“gas”) and ‘淡’ (dàn, “dilute”) whence ‘淡氣’ (dànqì, nitrogen, lit. “dilluting gas”).
To wrap this all in a neat little bow, I would like to make some statements on the nature of the language. See, the difference between “nitric acid” and “saltpeter sour” is that the former is the vocabulary of a conlang masquerading as a dead language to borrow the prestige of a long dead empire while the latter sounds silly to those of us indoctrinated by the culture developed by the same Church as that very conlang. The Church being the origin of this “Neo-Latin” may provide some insight into why some languages opted instead for linguistic purism, as German and Dutch are notably Protestant culturally.
Alchemy begat chemistry amidst the Enlightenment, not as a rebirth but as the first step in a transition. This was evolution, what must adapt will adapt while that which needn’t adapt will not. New theories superseded old through empirical dramas, yet the exclusivity of Neo-Latin was only shifted from the primary language of treatises to that of jargon. Accessibility was brought to discourse, but the specifics therein still harken back to the pretension of alchemy.
It isn’t anti-intellectual to demand science be discussed in laymen’s terms and it isn’t xenophobic to adapt terminology to the language it is to be used within. When you mock a language for its linguistic purism, say Dutch’s koolwaterstof for ‘hydrocarbons,’ you must ask yourself what benefit lies in the alternative? What superiority is brought by the use of vocabulary learned via rote memorization rather than intuitive etymologies? Just some food for thought.
I’m calling it here. There’s room for further exploration into acide nitreux, Stickstof superseding Salpeterstof, who coined stikstof, and the origin of ‘淡氣.’ I’ve also been purposefully tiptoeing around phlogiston theory, so if you want an article on ‘oxygen’ you may offer tribute and I may consider it. Hopefully, whichever word I choose next will be less taxing. Tchüßi!
His name is Misha, by the way.
Also! Stop making fun of me for pronouncing it /blaʊhaɪ/! I get embarrassed trying to say it with the native pronunciation /bloːhaj/ and end up reading blå as German blau. Then I end up saying /blɑːhɑːʒ/ just to fit in despite generally not fucking with hyperforeignism. ↩︎
Particularly, my thoughts were centered on how infrequently the letter ‘i’ is read as /i/, with it being usually read as /ɪ/ or /aɪ/. As with many idiosyncrasies of English orthography, this is due to the Great Vowel Shift. The exact transition into thinking about ‘oxygen’ was via the etymology of ‘epoxy’ which does end in the vowel /i/ spelled as ‘y.’
Tangentially, one of the instances of /i/ spelled as ’i’ that I could think of was the ‘-ing’ suffix; however, this is apparently restricted to American dialects.
Further tangent: every time I type ‘/i/,’ my computer corrects it to ‘/I/.’ This is very annoying. ↩︎
“Of course,” she says. ‘Oxy’ clearly derives from the root ‘oxus,’ but its usage here is not sensible per our modern understanding of the element. We’ll get to that some day, maybe. ↩︎
Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Elements of Chemistry 3rd Am. ed., trans. William Nicholson (Boston: J. T. Buckingham, 1806): 28-29. ↩︎
In full:
“The most natural and suitable denominations which can be assigned to simple substances, must be deduced from a principle and characteristick property of the substance intended to be expressed. They may likewise be distinguished by words which do no present any precise idea to the mind. Most of the received names are established on this last principle, such as the names of Sulphur, Phosphorus, which do not convey and signification in our language, and produce in our minds determinate ideas only, because usage has applied them to known substances. These words, rendered sacred by use, ought to be preserved in a new nomenclature; and no change ought to be made, excepting when it is proposed to rectify vicious denominations. In this case the authors of the New Nomenclature have thought it proper to deduce the denomination from the principle characteristic of the substance. Thus, pure air might have been called Vital Air, Fire Air, or Oxigenous Gas; because it is the basis of acids, and the aliment of respiration and combustion. But it appears to me that this principle has been in a small degree departed from when the name of Azotick Gas was given to the atmospherical mephitis—1. Because none of the known gaseous substances excepting vital air being proper for respiration, the word Azote agrees with every one of them except one; and consequently this denomination is not founded upon an exclusive property, distinctive, and characteristick of the gas itself. 2. This denominations being once introduced, the nitrick acid ought to have been called Azotick Acid, and its combinations Azotates; because the acids are proposed to be denoted by the name which belongs to their radical. 3. If the denomination of Azotick Gas does not agree with the aëriform substance, the name of Azote agrees still less with the concrete and fixed substance; for in this state all the gases are essentially azotes. It appears to me therefore that the denomination of Azotick Gas is not established according to the principles which have been adopted; and that the names given to several substances of which this gas constitutes one of the elements, are equally removed from the principles of the Nomenclature. In order to correct the Nomenclature on this head, nothing more is necessary than to substitute to this word a denomination which is derived from the general system made of use: and I have presumed to propose that of Nitrogene Gas. In the first place, it is deduced from the exclusive and characteristick property of the gas, which forms the radical of the nitrick acid. By this means we shall preserve to the combinations of this substance the received denominations, such as those of the Nitrick Acid, Nitrates, Nitrites, &c. In this manner of the word, which is afforded by the principles, adopted and celebrated by authors of the nomenclature, causes every thing to return into the order proposed to be established.” ↩︎
In this case it simply states “From French nitrate.” ↩︎
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry 4th ed., trans. Robert Kerr (Edinburgh: William Creech, 1799): xii. ↩︎
Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, Clause-Louis Bertholet, and Antoine François de Fourcroy, Method of Chymical Nomenclature, trans. James St. John (London: Johnson’s Head, 1788): 25-26.
A more legible scan is also available online from the Center for Research Libraries (I wish I knew that before trying to read the Archive.org scans). ↩︎
In full:
“The denomination of phlogisticated air has been abandoned by the greater number of chymists; who thought that it expressed more than it ought, even a long time before it was known to express an error. It is at present well known that this fluid, which makes so considerable a part of the atmospherical air, is not vitiated vital air; that it has nothing in common with respirable air but its state of elastic fluidity, which is caused by its union with caloric: in short, that in losing this state of gas it becomes and element proper to many combinations. As there are several proofs of its being a distinct substance, a particular name for it was necessary, and in searching for one we endeavored to avoid at the same time the inconvenience of one of those perfectly insignificant words which are not connected with any known idea, and which offer no hold to the memory, and the inconvenience perhaps the more considerable of prematurely affirming what has been only foreseen.
It results from some synthetical experiments made by the Hon. Mr. Cavendish, and confirmed by a great number of analyses, that this principle is a component part of the nitrous acid. Mr. Bertholet has proved its existence in the volatile alkali, and in animal substances; it is probable that the fixed alkali also contains it, and from this it appears to deserve the appellation of alkaligen, as was proposed by Mr. de Fourcroy. But the analysis of these compositions is not sufficiently advanced to determine positively the manner of existence of this principle in those different substances, and from thence to attribute to it a constant and uniform property; besides, it was not possible by a single word to express the double property of forming the radical of a certain acid, and assisting in the production of an alkali; there did not appear any reasons for considering the latter of these properties in preference to the former, and by admitting the one in a manner to exclude the other. In this situation we thought it were the better way to derive the denomination from its other property, which it manifests in a very great degree, viz. not to maintain the existence of animals, to be really non-vital; in short to be so in a more considerable respect that the hepatic and acid gases, which do not like it constitute an essential part of the atmospherical mass, and therefore we have denominated it azot from the Greek privative α and ζωή life. After this it may not appear difficult to remember that the air which we breathe is a composition of oxygen gas and azotic gas.” ↩︎
de Morveau et. al., Method of Chymical Nomenclature, 31. ↩︎
de Morveau et. al., Method of Chymical Nomenclature, 35. ↩︎
de Morveau et. al., Method of Chymical Nomenclature, 140. ↩︎
de Morveau et. al., Method of Chymical Nomenclature, 142. ↩︎
de Morveau et. al., Method of Chymical Nomenclature, 141. ↩︎
“On this idea, in naming the bases of potash and soda, it will be proper to adopt the termination which, by common consent, has been applied to other newly discovered metals, and which, though originally Latin, is now naturalized in our language.
Potasium and sodium are the names by which I have ventured to call the two new substances: and whatever changed of theory, with regard to the composition of bodies, may hereafter take place, these terms can scarcely express and error; for they may be considered as implying simply the metals produced from potash and soda. I have consulted with many of the most eminent scientific persons in this country, upon the methods of derivation, and the one I have adopted has been the one most generally approved. It is perhaps more significant than elegant. But it was not possible to found names upon specific properties not common to both; and though a name for the basis of soda might have been borrowed from the Greek, yet an analogous one could not have been applied to that of potash, for the ancients do not seem to have distinguished between the two alkalies.”
Sir Humphry Davy, “Some general Observations on the Relations of the Bases of Potash and Soda to other Bodies,” The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy 5, ed. John Davy (London: Smith, Elder, and Co. Cornhill, 1840), 88-89. ↩︎
Carmen Giunta, “Glossary of Archaic Chemical Terms,” Le Moyne College, Retrieved Jan. 6, 2025. ↩︎
James A. H. Murray, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philosophical Society 6 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1908), N165 ↩︎
“Osteocolla, with Spirit of Nitre maketh yet a greater Evervescence. How it comes to be so great a knitter of broken Bones, as it is reputed, is obscure. It seemeth, that upon its solution by a Nitrous Acid in the body, it is precipitated upon the broken part, and so becomes a kind of Cement thereto.”
Nehemiah Grew, “Experiments in Consort of the Luctation,” The Anatomy of Plants 2ed. (London: W. Rawlins, 1682), 243. ↩︎
John French, The Art of Distillation (London: E. Cotes, 1653), 157. ↩︎
William Lewis, A Course of Practical Chemistry (London: J. Nourse, 1746), 156. ↩︎
Richard Boulton, Physico-Chyrurgical Treatise of the Gout, the Kings-Evil, and the Lues Venerea (London: W. Brand and J. Kent, 1714), 343. ↩︎
Gideon Harvey, The Disease of London (London: T. James, 1675), 84-85. ↩︎
In full:
“The variety of Acids beyond this last inserted distinction, is great: Acids are either Pontique or Styptique, as some deep red Wines, Vitriol, and many Vitriolate Præparations; Acerbous, as immature Pears, Apples, Plumbs, &c. Austere, as some sort of Wines, that taste sour and harsh. There is also an Acre-Acidum; a sharp Acid, without any Stypticity or Austerity, as the Acid of Spirit of Salt Marine. In Mucilages is also a particular Acid to be observed, which may be termed Acidum Mucilaginosum. Some use may be made of describing Acids by names derived from the Acids in Minerals, whereunto the Acids in the Body bear a proportion and resemblance, as in some it’s remarkable, they experience a sour styptique tase upon their Tongues, not without some likeness to Copper, which may not improperly be called a Nitriolat Acid. In the same manner other Acids may be termed nitrous, aluminous, &c. By the way I am to advertise, that I am not ignorant, that Natural Philosophers distinguish Tastes into acid, sharp, austere, &c. which here I do resume as kind of Acids; referring the truth thereof to the arbitrement of any ones sense; but those Naturalists following the umbrage of reason more than Notion, abstracted from Experimental Philosophy, no wonder they failed in this particular.” ↩︎
“nitrous,” Online Etymology Dictionary, Retrieved Jan. 7, 2025. ↩︎
I was originally going to say it couldn’t compete in Lavoisier’s home turf, which would have been funny but not particularly correct. Primarily because Chaptal was also French, but also because (at least according to a Dutch article I read) Lavoisier himself preferred nitrigène. Regardless of the veracity of this, I consistently refer to the nomenclature’s authors as Lavoisier et al. as it was not just Lavoisier and may not have always reflected his personal opinion. ↩︎
“Stickstoff,” Wiktionary (de), Retrieved Jan. 11, 2025. ↩︎
Wolfgang Pfeifer et al., “Stickstoff,” Etymologisches Wörterbuck des Deutchen (1993). ↩︎
“Stickstoff,” WikiWoordenbook, Retrieved Jan. 11, 2025. ↩︎
Christoph Girtanner, Neue chemische Nomenklatur für die deutsche Sprache (Berlin: Bei Johann Friedrich Unger, 1791), 11. ↩︎
Christoph Girtanner, Anfangsgründe der antiphlogistischen Chemie (Berlin: Bei Johann Friedrich Unger, 1792), 78. ↩︎
Johann Carl Fischer, Physikalisches Wörterbuch (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1801), 830. ↩︎
This translation of the title is taken from the Wikipedia page on Rangaku. ↩︎
宇田川玄真 and 宇田川榕菴, 遠西医方名物考補遺 8 (浅草茅町(江戸): 青藜閣, ca. 1834), 6. ↩︎
Yes, I’m using Nihon-siki again :P ↩︎
Jan. 12, 2025: Fix typo in footnote 30 (“Girtranner” to “Girtanner”). Fix typos (“to lead establish” to “to establish”, “vocabulary a conlang” to “vocabulary of a conglang”).
