Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Butane
/ˈbjuːteɪn/noun
A flammable hydrocarbon gas of four carbons, easily liquefied and burned in lighters and camping stoves.
The Greek roots
βοῦς
boûs
ox, cow
τυρός
tyrós
cheese
Literally: “cow cheese”
The story of the word
Butter, seen from the Greek side. Βούτυρον is cow-cheese, a name the Greeks gave to something they thought of as Scythian and Thracian food rather than their own, since they cooked with oil. Chemists found butyric acid in rancid butter and named it for that smell, then built butyl on the acid and butane on butyl. The gas in a camping stove is therefore called, at the far end of the chain, cow cheese.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
butterbutyricbucolicboustrophedon
In a sentence
One butane canister will run the stove for a weekend.
Butane liquefies under mild pressure, which is why the lighter is transparent and half full.