caloric

Etymology

It is borrowed from French calorique,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} a word coined by Lavoisier^[2][3][8] from Latin calor (“heat”) and the suffix -ique.^[2][4][9] Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes the ending as modelled on phlogistique (“phlogiston”).^[4] The Latin noun is from caleō (“to be warm”),^[7][10] and Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *kele- (“warm”).^[3] The OED and Merriam-Webster Unabridged treat the adjective as formed separately, from Latin calor and -ic,^[2][4] Merriam-Webster probably after the noun.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The supposed elastic fluid to which the phenomena of heat were once attributed: 1792, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.^[2][11] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate give the same year,^[3][12] and the 1989 edition of the OED had 1791.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The word was the name of the "matter of heat" in the theory of heat as a fluid, and it went out of use with that theory, so that it now belongs to the history of science.^[2][14][15] From 1794 it was also used simply for heat, sometimes figuratively, a use now archaic.^[2][4][14] The adjective, "relating to heat", is dated to about 1828 by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate,^[12] to 1853 by the 1989 edition of the OED^[13] and to 1865 by the current OED and Etymonline.^[2][3] Its later sense "relating to or containing calories", as in the caloric content of food, came with calorie;^[5][4][12] Weekley notes the French calorie as current in English in 1917.^[8]

Timeline

• 1792 – noun, the supposed fluid of heat.^{[2][3][12][11]}
• 1794 – noun, heat itself; also figurative.^[2][11]
• c. 1828 – adjective, of or relating to heat.^[12] The current OED and Etymonline date the adjective to 1865.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or relating to calories; containing calories: the caloric value of a sandwich.^{[5][4][12][15]}
2. Of or relating to heat.^{[5][4][15][2]}

Noun

1. (historical) A supposed weightless, elastic fluid once held to be the cause of heat and combustion.^{[5][4][2][14][15]}
2. (archaic) Heat.^[4][14]

Word family

• calorically
• caloricity
• noncaloric

Related words

• calorie
• calorific
• calorimeter
• nonchalant
• scald
• cauldron

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
11. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins