Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Chlorine
/ˈklɔːriːn/noun
A poisonous greenish-yellow gas, element 17, used to disinfect water.
The Greek roots
χλωρός
chlōrós
pale green, yellow-green
Literally: “the pale green one”
Follow a root:χλωρός5 words
The story of the word
Humphry Davy named it in 1810, purely for its colour, after proving that the gas everyone called oxymuriatic acid contained no oxygen and was an element in its own right. Scheele had made it in 1774 without knowing what he had. The same colour word names chlorophyll, the pigment that makes leaves green, and chloasma, a patchy skin discolouration.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1810
Same family
chlorophyllchloroformchloride
In a sentence
You could smell the chlorine from the car park.