phlogiston

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a hypothetical fire-like substance once thought to exist in combustible materials and to be released during burning

   Eighteenth-century chemists used phlogiston to explain why substances changed when they burned.

From New Latin phlogiston, formed from Greek phlogiston ("burnt up, inflammable"), from phlogizein ("to set on fire") and phlox ("flame"). The name was applied to the supposed fiery principle released in combustion before oxygen-based chemistry displaced phlogiston theory.

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