Etymologically
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calorie

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 26 October 2026 at 03:15. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • /ˈkæləɹi/, /ˈkælɹi/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French calorie,[2][3][4][5][6] formed from Latin calor (“heat”);[2][3][4][7] the OED and Hoad call the formation arbitrary.[2][7] The Shorter Oxford, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Dictionary.com analyse it as the Latin stem with the French suffix -ie,[5][8][9] while Merriam-Webster thinks the French word was probably made from calorique (“caloric”) on the model of dynamique (“dynamic”) and dynamie, a unit of force.[10] The Latin noun comes from caleō (“to be warm or hot”),[4] and Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *kle-os-, a suffixed form of Proto-Indo-European *kele- (“warm”).[3] The same Latin word is behind caloric and calorific, and, through French, cauldron, chowder and nonchalant.[11][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A unit of heat: the OED's first quotation is from 1863, in E. Atkinson's translation of Ganot's treatise on physics,[2] while Etymonline and Barnhart date the word to 1866,[3][4] and Dictionary.com to 1800–10.[9] Wiktionary notes that the unit was first defined as the large calorie in the early 19th century, and the small calorie only some decades later.[1]

Semantic evolution

The word has always named two units: the small or gram calorie, the heat needed to raise one gram of water by one degree Celsius, and the large calorie or kilocalorie, a thousand times greater, which became the usual measure of the energy value of food.[3][5][12] Partly because of this confusion, scientists largely replaced it by the joule about 1950.[3][12] In everyday use, a calorie is now the food unit, sometimes written with a capital C.[12][10] Counting or watching calories as a way of controlling weight is attested by 1908.[3]

Timeline

  • 1863 – a unit of heat, in a translation of a French physics textbook.[2]
  • 1866 – first date given by Etymonline and Barnhart.[3][4]
  • 1908 – calorie-counting as a way of regulating weight.[3]
  • about 1950 – largely replaced by the joule in scientific use.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A unit of heat or energy, the amount needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius; also called a small calorie or gram calorie.[10][12][5]
  2. A unit a thousand times larger, the kilocalorie, used to measure the energy value of food; often written Calorie: A slice of this cake has about 400 calories.[12][10][5]
  3. An amount of food that supplies this much energy.[12]

Word family

  • caloric
  • calorific
  • calorific value
  • gram calorie
  • kilogram calorie
  • large calorie

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins