Etymologically
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nitrogen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈnaɪ.tɹə.d͡ʒən/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French nitrogène,[2][3][4][5][6] a word coined in 1790 by the French chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal,[2][3][7][8] formed from nitro-, from νίτρον (nítron, “sodium carbonate, natron”), the source of nitre,[3][4][9] and the suffix -gène, from -γενής (-genḗs, “born of, produced by”).[3][8] The name, "nitre-producing", was given because the gas was found to be a constituent of nitric acid.[6][4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The chemical element: 1791, in William Nicholson's translation of Chaptal's Elements of Chemistry, which renders the passage of 1790 where the French word first appears.[2][10] Barnhart and Etymonline date the English word to 1794.[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The gas had been produced from air in 1772 by the Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford,[7] and an earlier English name for it was mephitic air.[3][4] Lavoisier called it azote, a name that survived in French.[3] From 1870 the word was also used for a nitrogen compound, especially one used as a fertilizer.[2]

Timeline

  • 1772 – the gas is first isolated, as mephitic air.[7][3]
  • 1790 – French nitrogène coined by Chaptal.[2][3]
  • 1791 – first English use.[2][10]
  • 1870 – a nitrogen compound used as a fertilizer.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A colourless, odourless, largely unreactive gaseous chemical element that makes up about 78 per cent of the atmosphere by volume and is an essential part of proteins; symbol N, atomic number 7.
  2. A compound of nitrogen, especially one used as a fertilizer: Spread nitrogen on the field in early spring.

Word family

  • nitrogenous
  • nitrogen-fixing
  • nitrogenase
  • nitrogen balance
  • nitrogen cycle
  • nitrogen dioxide
  • nitrate
  • nitre
  • nitric
  • nitride
  • nitrification
  • nitrify
  • nitrite
  • nitro-
  • nitrous
  • -gen
  • oxygen
  • hydrogen
  • azote

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 d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster