chromatography

Etymology

It is formed from English chromato- + -graphy,^[2][3][4][5] and the chemical sense is borrowed from German Chromatographie,^[2][6][4] a term the OED traces to M. Tswett in 1906.^[2] Chromato- is the Latinized combining form of Ancient Greek χρῶμα (khrôma, “colour”),^[3] and -graphy goes back to -γραφία (-graphía), from γραφή (graphḗ, “writing, drawing, description”).^[1] The chemical process was so named because the earliest separations showed up as a series of coloured bands or spots.^[4][6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A description of colours: 1731, in Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, a treatise on colours, belonged to dictionaries and is now rare or obsolete.^[2][4] The modern word is in effect a new borrowing from German, which gave English the chemical sense, first recorded in Nature in 1937.^[2][4] According to Wiktionary, the technique was developed mainly for separating plant pigments, which spread out into bands of different colours.^[1] The Oxford Dictionary of English and Merriam-Webster Unabridged accordingly date the word to the 1930s (Merriam-Webster to 1936).^[6][8] Its varieties include paper chromatography, column chromatography and gas chromatography.^[9][4]

Timeline

• 1731 – a description of colours.^[2][3]
• 1937 – a method of separating the substances in a mixture by their different rates of movement through an absorbent medium.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A technique for separating and analysing the components of a mixture, which pass at different rates through a stationary medium such as paper, a gel or a column of powder, often by selective adsorption.^[8][9][4]
2. (obsolete) A description of colours.^[2][4]

Word family

• chromatographer
• chromatographic
• chromatographically
• radiochromatography
• paper chromatography
• gas chromatography
• thin-layer chromatography

Related words

• chroma
• chromatic
• chromatogram

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins