centrifugal

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin centrifugus (“fleeing the centre”) with the English suffix -al.^[2][3][4][5] The Latin adjective is formed from centrum (“centre”) and -fugus (“fleeing”), from fugiō (“to flee”).^[2][6][7] Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein say that Isaac Newton coined it in his “Principia” of 1687,^[4][3][7] but the OED's revised entry finds New Latin vis centrifuga (“centrifugal force”) in a letter from Christiaan Huygens to Henry Oldenburg dated 4 September 1669, and in Huygens's “Horologium oscillatorium” (1673), to which Newton referred.^[2] The OED also compares French centrifuge (1700), from the Latin,^[2] and notes that centripetal is the earlier word in English.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Directed away from the centre, in the phrase centrifugal force, the apparent force on objects in a rotating frame of reference: 1698, in J. Keill's Examination of Burnet's Theory of Earth.^[2] Etymonline gives the 1690s,^[4] Barnhart dates the phrase to before 1721,^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to about 1721.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word entered English as a term of physics, and Johnson (1755) still defines it by the quality of bodies in motion receding from the centre.^[2][8] By 1771 it had a figurative use, for whatever pulls away from a centre.^[2][6] From 1736 it was applied to machines that work by this force, and since 1858 to the processes they carry out.^[2] As a noun, such a machine is recorded from 1813 in the OED and 1866 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged.^[2][5] In biology it has meant growing outward from a centre since 1770, in botany it has been used of inflorescences since 1828, and in physiology it has described nerve impulses travelling away from the brain or spinal cord, also since 1828.^[2] From 1861 it was used especially of sugar produced in such a machine.^[2]

Timeline

• 1698 – centrifugal force.^[2]
• 1709 – directed away from the centre, as an effect of this force.^[2]
• 1736 – of machines that use centrifugation.^[2]
• 1770 – in biology, growing outward from the centre.^[2]
• 1771 – figurative use.^[2]
• 1800 – in botany, of the radicle of a plant embryo.^[2]
• 1813 – noun, a centrifugal machine.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the noun to 1866.^[5]
• 1828 – in physiology, carrying impulses away from the brain or spinal cord; in botany, of an inflorescence whose central flower opens first.^[2]
• 1858 – of processes involving centrifugation.^[2]
• 1861 – of sugar, produced by centrifugation.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Moving or tending to move away from a centre or axis; opposed to centripetal: centrifugal force.^[9][5][2]
2. Operated by or using centrifugal force: a centrifugal pump.^[9][5][2]
3. Of a substance, separated or produced by centrifugal force, as sugar.^[5][2]
4. Pulling away from a central point or authority; used figuratively: the centrifugal pull of regional loyalties.^[2][6]
5. (botany) Of an inflorescence, developing outward from the centre.^[9][5][2]
6. (physiology) Carrying nerve impulses away from the brain or spinal cord; efferent.^[9][2]

Noun

1. A device that uses centrifugal force; a centrifuge.^[9][5][2]
2. The rotating drum in such a device.^[9][5]
3. Sugar produced by such a device; often used in the plural.^[5]

Word family

• centrifugalism
• centrifugally
• centrifugalize
• ultracentrifugal
• centrifugal force

Related words

• center
• centrifuge
• centripetal
• fugitive
• fugue
• refuge

Usage notes

According to the OED, the word, like centripetal, was probably first stressed on the second-to-last syllable, and that stress still prevails in British usage, though the first edition of the OED (1889) gave only the stress on the third-to-last.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins