Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A hypothetical substance formerly thought to be a volatile constituent of all combustible substances, released as flame in combustion.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In old chemistry, the supposed principle of inflammability; the matter of fire in composition with other bodies.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Old Chem.) The hypothetical principle of fire, or inflammability, regarded by Stahl as a chemical element.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun chemistry, historical The
hypothetical fiery principle formerly assumed to be a necessaryconstituent ofcombustible bodies and to be given up by them inburning .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a hypothetical substance once believed to be present in all combustible materials and to be released during burning
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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We decline entering into a minute examination of his experiments, as few of his recitals of them are free from the triune mystery of phlogiston, which exceeds the utmost stretch of our faith; for according to it, carbon is phlogiston, and hydrogen is phlogiston, and azote is phlogiston; and yet there are not three phlogistons, but one phlogiston!
Priestley in America 1794-1804 Edgar Fahs Smith 1891
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Yet it may not be altogether amiss to reflect that the physicist of to-day is no more certain of his ether than was his predecessor of the eighteenth century of the existence of certain alleged substances which he called phlogiston, caloric, corpuscles of light, and magnetic and electric fluids.
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume III: Modern development of the physical sciences 1904
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With precipitated indigo, the orpiment doesn't create changes, Bergman continued, because the union of phlogiston is too strong — you need the heat and the alkali to relax it.
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Does this mean a science fiction story cannot be set in a fantasy universe where the theory of phlogiston is true?
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Stahl, the author of this theory, asserted that there is a principle of inflammability, to which he gave the name phlogiston, having the quality of uniting with substances.
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Stahl, the author of this theory, asserted that there is a principle of inflammability, to which he gave the name phlogiston, having the quality of uniting with substances.
History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science John William Draper 1846
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The same germ-idea underlying these doctrines is to be found much later in Stahl's phlogistic theory (eighteenth century), which attempted to account for the combustibility of bodies by the assumption that such bodies all contain "phlogiston" -- the hypothetical principle of combustion (see § 72) -- though the concept of "phlogiston" approaches more nearly to the modern idea of an element than do the alchemistic elements or principles.
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In Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, the TV documentarian Bill Moyers, quoting this poem, asked the author about the meaning of the unfamiliar word phlogiston.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
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In Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, the TV documentarian Bill Moyers, quoting this poem, asked the author about the meaning of the unfamiliar word phlogiston.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
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In Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft, the TV documentarian Bill Moyers, quoting this poem, asked the author about the meaning of the unfamiliar word phlogiston.
No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003
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Lavoisier and his colleagues drew from their training at the Collège Mazarin where they learned such theories as the phlogiston theory, which proposed that the four traditional elements of the earth (earth, water, air, and fire) could also simultaneously function as instruments.
The Art and Chemistry of Replicating Oil Paintings into Woven Textiles Delanie Linden 2024
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Lavoisier and his colleagues drew from their training at the Collège Mazarin where they learned such theories as the phlogiston theory, which proposed that the four traditional elements of the earth (earth, water, air, and fire) could also simultaneously function as instruments.
The Art and Chemistry of Replicating Oil Paintings into Woven Textiles Delanie Linden 2024
ladyphlogiston commented on the word phlogiston
I love this word. I have for years.
July 20, 2008
johnmperry commented on the word phlogiston
Its major property was that it had negative mass.
July 20, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word phlogiston
See also dephlogisticated.
August 18, 2008
trauco commented on the word phlogiston
"Its major property was that it had negative mass."
However, this old theory requires that phlogiston has weight when used to explain burning (since ashes weigh less most of the time), but when used to explain the corrosion it required that it had no weight or negative weight, since corroded metals weigh the same or more as they did before corrosion.
A completely schizophrenic theory
October 26, 2009
Gammerstang commented on the word phlogiston
The existence of phlogiston was denied by Lavoisier in 1775, and though stoutly maintained by Priestley, belief in it was generally abandoned by 1800.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 16, 2018