bitumen

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bitumen, also bithumen,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin bitūmen (“asphalt, mineral pitch”).^[4][5][6][7] Some obsolete English spellings were taken from Romance forms such as French bitume, Italian bitume, Portuguese betume and Spanish betun.^[4] The further origin of the Latin noun is not settled.^[5][8] Etymonline, Klein and Weekley make it a loan through Oscan or Umbrian,^[5][9][10] since the native Latin form would have been Latin *vetūmen, according to Klein.^[9] Etymonline, Barnhart, Merriam-Webster and Klein consider it probably Celtic,^{[5][11][3][9]} and the American Heritage Dictionary and Collins say perhaps Celtic.^[12][13] Etymonline names Proto-Celtic *betu- (“birch, birch resin”),^[5] compared with Gaulish betulla (“birch”), Pliny's name for the tree supposedly the source of bitumen,^[5][11] and Merriam-Webster with Middle Irish beithe (“box tree”) and Welsh bedw (“birch”), because tar was obtained from the birch.^[3] Barnhart, Klein and Ayto also connect the word with terms for sticky substances, such as cud, Old English cwidu (“resin, mastic”) and German Kitt (“putty”);^[11][9][14] Barnhart gives the Indo-European form as Proto-Indo-European *gwētu.^[11] Partridge leaves the choice open between an Osco-Umbrian and a Celtic origin.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A mineral pitch used as mortar: before 1464, in Capgrave's Abbreuiacion of Cronicles: than had thei tow erde, clepid bitumen; with these too thei made the Toure of Confusion.^[2][4][11] Dictionary.com dates the word 1425–75,^[15] and Etymonline to the mid-15th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

At first the word named one substance, the pitch found in Palestine and Babylon and used as mortar, the same thing as asphalt.^[4][7] W. Turner used it in 1551 for the sap of the birch, an isolated use.^[4] From 1605 it became a general name for flammable mineral substances made up of hydrocarbons.^[4][7] Johnson (1755), following Savary, described a fat matter dug from the earth or skimmed from lakes, some kinds hard enough to serve as coal and others sticky enough for mortar.^[16] A pigment made from asphalt took the name in the 19th century.^[4][7] In Australia, the bitumen came to mean a tarred road, and above all the road between Darwin and Alice Springs: Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes it from 1949,^[17] the OED from 1953.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1464 – mineral pitch used as mortar, as bitumen and bithumen.^[2][4][11]
• 1551 – the sap of the birch, in W. Turner's Herball (obsolete).^[4]
• 1605 – a general name for flammable native hydrocarbons.^[4]
• 1855 – a pigment prepared from asphalt.^[4][7]
• 1949 – the bitumen, the road from Darwin to Alice Springs.^[17] The OED's first record of this Australian use is from 1953.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of various dark, sticky or solid mixtures of hydrocarbons, occurring naturally or left after refining, such as asphalt and tar, used for surfacing roads and roofing: The crew laid fresh bitumen over the car park.^[13][3][7]
2. The substances in coal that an organic solvent can extract.^[13]
3. Any liquid suitable for coating road aggregate.^[13]
4. A transparent brown pigment made from asphalt.^[13][4][7]
5. the bitumen (Australian, informal): a road with a tarred surface, especially the road between Darwin and Alice Springs.^[13][4][7]
6. The asphalt of the Near East used in ancient times as a cement and mortar.^[3][4][7]

Word family

• bituminoid
• bituminization
• bituminous
• pyrobitumen

Related words

• cud
• quid
• béton

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com