Etymologically
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methane

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈmiːθeɪn/, /ˈmɛθeɪn/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English meth- + -ane,[2][3][4][5] after German Methan, a name proposed by A. W. Hofmann in 1866.[2] The first part is taken from methyl,[6][7][8][9][10][11] and Merriam-Webster counts the word as International Scientific Vocabulary.[4] Methyl comes from French méthyle or German Methyl, back-formations from méthylène,[6][8][7] which Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas and Eugène-Melchior Péligot coined from Ancient Greek μέθυ (méthu, “wine”) and ὕλη (húlē, “wood”).[6][11] The Greek word for wine is related to mead.[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The colourless, odourless, flammable gas CH₄, the simplest of the alkanes: 1867, in Hofmann's paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.[2][6][4] Barnhart dates the English word to 1868,[7] and Dictionary.com to 1865–70.[5]

Semantic evolution

The Historical Thesaurus places it first among the straight-chained alkanes, as the one with a single carbon atom.[12] Etymonline glosses it as "marsh gas", and Collins and Merriam-Webster refer to marsh gas and firedamp.[6][9][4] Dictionaries now stress that it is the main constituent of natural gas and is used as a fuel,[9][13][3] and the OED adds that it is produced by decaying organic matter and in the guts of ruminants.[2]

Timeline

  • 1866 – German Methan, named by A. W. Hofmann.[2]
  • 1867 – English methane.[2][6][4]
  • 1868 – Barnhart's first date.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A colourless, odourless, flammable gas, CH₄, the simplest alkane, formed by decaying organic matter and found in marshes and mines; it is the main part of natural gas and is used as a fuel: Cattle release methane as they digest grass.[9][13][4][2][3]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt