chloroform

Etymology

It is borrowed from French chloroforme, a name given in 1834 by the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas.^[2][3][4][5] The OED and Hoad analyse it as chloro-, standing for chlorine, and the first syllable of formyl, the substance being regarded as a chloride of formyl in that word's old sense of the radical CH (methenyl), not its present sense of the radical CHO of formic acid.^[2][6][7] Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein take the second part from formique (“formic”) instead,^[3][4][5] itself from Latin formīca (“ant”);^[5] Klein says Dumas chose the name because the liquid can form potassium chloride and formic acid.^[5] Wiktionary describes it as a blend of terchloride (trichloride) and formyle.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The name of the colourless, sweet-smelling liquid: 1838, in Thomas Thomson's Chemistry of Organic Bodies.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the noun to 1835.^[3] Barnhart notes that the substance itself had been discovered in 1831 and 1832 by three chemists working independently, before Dumas named it.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a chemist's name for a solvent, and its fame came with its use as an anaesthetic: Weekley credits James Simpson with that use in 1847, quoting the Illustrated London News of December 1847 on the success of "this new anaesthetic agent".^[8] The verb, to put someone under chloroform, followed in 1848, first in an article by Simpson in The Lancet;^[2][4] Etymonline gives 1848 as the year the anaesthetic properties were discovered.^[3] By 1849 the verb was used figuratively, of making someone insensible by other means.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records the sense of killing an animal with chloroform,^[7] and Collins and Merriam-Webster note that its medical use as an anaesthetic belongs to the past.^[9][7]

Timeline

• 1838 – the liquid trichloromethane.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the noun to 1835.^[3]
• 1848 – verb, to administer chloroform to, or to make insensible with it.^[2][4][7]
• 1849 – verb, figuratively, to make insensible.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A heavy, colourless, volatile liquid with a sweetish smell, CHCl₃ (trichloromethane), used as a solvent and formerly as an inhaled anaesthetic: The old bottle of chloroform was kept in a locked cabinet.^[9][7][2]

Verb

1. To give chloroform to someone, or to make a person or animal unconscious with it: The vet chloroformed the injured fox.^[7][2]
2. To kill with chloroform.^[7]
3. To treat or soak something with chloroform.^[2][7]

Word family

• chloroformic
• nitrochloroform
• prechloroform
• methyl chloroform

Related words

• bromoform
• iodoform
• chlorine
• chloro-
• formic
• formyl

References

1. ^ a b 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins