Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Diode
/ˈdaɪəʊd/noun
A component that lets electric current pass in one direction and blocks it in the other.
The Greek roots
δίς
dís
twice, two
ὁδός
hodós
way, path
Literally: “two ways”
The story of the word
The -ode is a road. William Whewell built electrode for Faraday in 1834 out of ἤλεκτρον and ὁδός, a way, and every later part inherited the ending: diode, triode, pentode, counting electrodes rather than paths. William Henry Eccles proposed diode for the two-electrode valve in 1919. A two-way name for the most one-way device in electronics is the small joke inside the word.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1919
Same family
electrodecathodeanodeexodus
In a sentence
One diode across the relay coil stops the back-voltage from killing the transistor.
Every light-emitting diode in the room is drawing a few milliamps.