Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Electricity
/ɪlɛkˈtrɪsɪti/noun
The flow of electric charge and the energy carried by it.
The Greek roots
ἤλεκτρον
ḗlektron
amber
Literally: “the quality of amber”
Follow a root:ἤλεκτρον14 words
The story of the word
Rub amber with wool and it will pick up a straw; Thales is said to have noticed this, and the Greek for amber was ἤλεκτρον. William Gilbert, physician to Elizabeth I, coined the Latin electricus in 1600 for bodies that behave like rubbed amber, and Thomas Browne wrote electricity in English in 1646. Nothing in the word touches lightning or current. It names a lump of fossil tree resin.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1646
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
electronelectrodeelectrolysiselectrocute
In a sentence
The electricity went off for six hours and the freezer held.
Half the village still remembers the year electricity arrived.