condensation

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin condēnsātiō,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} the noun of action from Latin condēnsō (“to make dense, press close together”),^[8][5][6][2] the source of condense, which is formed from com-, here perhaps intensive, and dēnsō (“to thicken”), from dēnsus (“thick, dense, crowded”), the source of dense.^[5][9] The OED notes that the word was also used in 14th-century French by Oresme,^[8] and the Shorter Oxford compares Old French condensation.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of making or becoming denser; a reduction in volume: 1603, in Philemon Holland's translation of Plutarch.^[8] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1594 and Etymonline to about 1600.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The scientific sense, the change of a gas or vapour into a liquid, followed in 1614, in Raleigh's History of the World;^[8][5] Johnson (1755) still defined the word as the thickening of a body, the opposite of rarefaction.^[10] From 1665 it could also mean a condensed mass of anything,^[8] and Collins records the liquid that condenses from a vapour, especially on a window.^[11] The figurative sense, the compression of thought or meaning into few words or the shortening of a written work, appeared in 1798.^[8][4] Later sciences added their own uses: concentrating light in optics (1832), a reaction joining two organic molecules in chemistry (1886), and in psychoanalysis, after the 1913 English translation of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, the fusing of several images or ideas into one.^[8][11]

Timeline

• 1603 – the action of making or becoming denser.^[8]
• 1614 – the change of a vapour or gas into a liquid.^[8][5]
• 1626 – the condensed state.^[8]
• 1665 – a condensed mass of anything.^[8]
• 1798 – the compression of thought or of a written work into a smaller compass.^[8]
• 1832 – in optics, the concentration of light.^[8]
• 1886 – in organic chemistry, a reaction joining two molecules.^[8]
• 1913 – in psychoanalysis, the fusion of several images into one.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of condensing, or the state of being condensed or compressed.^[11][4][8]
2. The change of a gas or vapour into a liquid; also the drops of liquid so formed, especially on a cold window: Condensation ran down the bathroom mirror.^[11][8]
3. The reduction of a text or speech to a shorter form; an abridgment of a book; also conciseness of style.^[11][4][8]
4. (chemistry) A reaction in which two organic molecules join to form a larger one, usually releasing a small molecule such as water.^[11][8]
5. (psychoanalysis) The fusion of two or more ideas or images into a single symbol, especially in dreams.^[11][8]

Word family

• condensational
• condensative
• noncondensation
• overcondensation
• recondensation
• precondensation

Related words

• condense
• condensate
• condenser
• dense
• density

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins