éter

Forms

éter m (plural éteres)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin aethēr (“the upper air, heaven”), which Latin had taken from Ancient Greek αἰθήρ (aithḗr, “clear sky, heaven”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word was itself a learned loan, used by poets from Ennius on, and kept some Greek case endings.^[5][6]

The Greek noun is generally derived from αἴθω (aíthō, “to kindle, burn”).^[7][1][2] Beekes and Wiktionary suggest that its ending was shaped after ἀήρ (aḗr, “mist, air”).^[7][1] Gómez de Silva takes it back to an Indo-European *aidh- (“to burn”), the root he also gives for estío.^[8]

The name of the chemical compound is the same word: Corominas explains it by the lightness and volatility of the liquid.^[2][3] Vox adds that the substances so named were volatile and combustible.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first Spanish record to 1547, in A. de Fuentes;^[10] Alfonso de Palencia's vocabulary had defined the word before, but only as a Latin word.^[2][3] The BDELC gives this first sense as the subtle fluid that fills space beyond the atmosphere.^[3] The adjective etéreo is older: Corominas finds it in Juan de Mena, stressed on the last e, and dates it 1444.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word came in as a term of ancient cosmology for the region of heaven above the air;^[10] Gaspar y Roig still records it as the sphere of fire of the old astronomers, the physicists' subtle and elastic fluid filling the space of the heavenly bodies, the poets' sky and a mythological person.^[10] The Academy's 1817 dictionary defined it only as a chemical liquid, clear, light, inflammable and so volatile that it vanishes from the hand, and used in medicine.^[11] The BDELC dates the chemical sense 1832.^[3] The DCECH dates it to the Academy's 1843 edition.^[2] The poetic sense “the sky” was added by the Academy in 1869.^[12]

Today the dictionaries give the poetic sense, the fluid of an abandoned physical hypothesis that was thought to carry light and heat, and the class of organic compounds with an oxygen atom between two hydrocarbon groups, one of which, ethyl ether, was long used as an anaesthetic.^[4][13][14] The DTME notes that the specific chemical sense is recorded in English from 1757.^[14] Judeo-Spanish has the word for the anaesthetic.^[15]

Timeline

• 1444 – Juan de Mena uses the adjective etéreo.^[3][2]
• 1547 – first record of éter, in A. de Fuentes.^[2][3]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary defines it as a volatile chemical liquid used in medicine.^[11]
• 1832 – first record of the chemical sense according to the BDELC.^[3]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary, the date the DCECH gives for the chemical sense.^[2][16]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the poetic sense “the sky”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (poetic) The apparent sphere around the Earth; the sky, the heavens.^[4][13]
2. (physics) The hypothetical subtle, weightless and elastic fluid once thought to fill all space and to carry light and other forms of energy, a hypothesis now abandoned.^[4][9]
3. (chemistry) An organic compound whose molecule has an oxygen atom joined to two hydrocarbon groups.^[4][13][14]
4. ether in the narrow sense, ethyl ether (éter etílico), a volatile liquid formerly used as an anaesthetic: En el botiquín quedaba un frasco de éter.^[4][14][1]

Word family

• etéreo
• eterizar
• etilo
• etílico

Related words

• estío
• Latin aethēr

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 818
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. éter
4. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. éter
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 290
9. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. éter
10. ^ a b c Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 961
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 399
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 344
13. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. éter
14. ^ a b c d Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. éter
15. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. éter
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 329