pneumatic

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   operated by compressed air or another gas

   Workers used a pneumatic drill to break up the concrete.

2. 2
   adj

   containing or inflated with air or gas

   The bicycle's pneumatic tires softened the ride over rough ground.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Pneumatic comes from Greek pneumatikos, from pneuma “wind,” based on pnein “to breathe.” Because the Greeks associated breath with the soul, pneumatic meant “spiritual” in New Testament Greek, and this was its earliest recorded English sense. It was applied to things inflated with air in the mid-19th century and later to a well-rounded female form.

From Latin pneumaticus, from Greek pneumatikos ('of wind, air, breath, or spirit'), from pneuma ('wind, breath, spirit'), itself from pnein ('to blow or breathe'). Mechanical uses developed from the physical sense 'relating to air or gas.'

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary