magnetism

Etymology

It is formed from English magnet + -ism.^[2] Most dictionaries instead take it from New Latin magnetismus,^{[3][4][5][6][7]} built on Latin magnēs (“magnet”), stem magnet-, with -ismus.^[4] The OED, in its revised entry of 2000, allows only influence from the Latin form, since it finds no evidence for it before the later 17th century.^[2] Compare French magnétisme and Italian magnetismo, recorded from 1666 and 1684.^[2] The Latin word for the magnet comes from Ancient Greek Μάγνης (Mágnēs, “Magnesian (stone), magnet”), after Magnesia, a region of Thessaly or a city in ancient Lydia.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The characteristic properties of a magnet: 1616, in the dedication of W. Barlow's Magneticall Advertisements.^[2][4] Etymonline gives the 1610s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

By the middle of the 17th century the word had spread beyond magnets: in 1650 Sir T. Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica applied it to natural phenomena likened to magnetic attraction,^[2] with "many other magnetisms, and the like attractions through all the creatures of nature",^[9] and in the same year T. Vaughan used it figuratively for attractive power or influence.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) gave "power of the loadstone; power of attraction", quoting Glanvill's "the magnetism of interest".^[9] Later the figurative use came to mean personal charm or charisma.^[2][6] The word was used for the science of magnetic phenomena from 1676, in Boyle, according to the OED,^[2] and only later by other accounts.^[6][3] From 1784, after Mesmer, it also meant mesmerism, a sense now archaic.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1616 – the characteristic properties of a magnet.^[2][4]
• 1650 – natural phenomena likened to magnetic attraction; figuratively, attractive power or influence.^[2]
• 1676 – the branch of science dealing with magnetic phenomena.^[2] The Shorter Oxford dates this sense to the mid 18th century, and Etymonline to the early 19th.^[6][3]
• 1784 – mesmerism.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The class of physical phenomena in which magnets and moving electric charges produce fields of force and attract iron.^[4][10]
2. The property of being magnetic: the magnetism of a steel needle.^[2][10][6]
3. The branch of physics dealing with these phenomena.^[10][4][2]
4. Power to attract; personal charm or charisma: The young candidate's magnetism filled the hall.^[10][2][6]
5. (archaic) Mesmerism; animal magnetism.^[2][6]

Word family

• biomagnetism
• electromagnetism
• geomagnetism
• paleomagnetism
• animal magnetism

Related words

• magnet
• magnetic
• magnetize
• magnesia
• manganese

References

1. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins