catalysis

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κατάλυσις (katálusis, “dissolution, a dissolving”),^[2][3][4][5] according to several dictionaries by way of New Latin catalysis.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]} The Greek noun comes from καταλύω (katalúō, “to dissolve”),^[2][11][12] formed from κατά (katá, “down, completely”) and λύω (lúō, “to loosen”),^[2][5][12] from Proto-Indo-European *leu- (“to loosen, divide, cut apart”).^[12][4] In Greek it was used of the dissolving of a government or of a military unit.^[2][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dissolution, destruction, ruin: in a letter of John Evelyn dated 18 March 1655.^[2][5] Etymonline likewise gives the 1650s.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The first English use, for the ruin of something, was rare and was gone by about 1660.^[2][6] The word returned as a term of chemistry: in 1836 the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius gave the name to the effect of a substance that helps a reaction along while itself remaining unchanged.^{[2][5][12][3]} From this noun came catalyse and catalytic in the 19th century and catalyst in the 20th, the first of them modelled on analyse.^[7] A negative form of it, the matching slowing of a reaction, is also named.^[6][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a transferred use, for an action between persons or forces that some outside agent provokes.^[3]

Timeline

• 1655 – dissolution, destruction (obsolete by 1660), in a letter of John Evelyn.^[2][5]
• 1836 – the speeding of a chemical reaction by a substance that stays unchanged, named by Berzelius.^{[2][5][12][3]}

Meanings

Noun

1. The change in the rate of a chemical reaction, especially its acceleration, caused by a catalyst that is not itself used up.^[3][8][4][2]
2. An action or reaction between people or forces that is set off by a separate agent.^[3]
3. (obsolete, 1655–60) Dissolution, destruction.^[2][6]

Word family

• catalytically
• autocatalysis

Related words

• catalyst
• catalytic
• catalyze
• analysis
• lose

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com