Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Electrolysis
/ɪlɛkˈtrɒlɪsɪs/noun
The breaking down of a compound by passing a current through it.
The Greek roots
ἤλεκτρον
ḗlektron
amber
λύσις
lýsis
loosening, breaking up
Literally: “loosening by amber-force”
The story of the word
Faraday and Whewell assembled the term in 1834 around λύσις, a loosening: the current loosens a compound into its parts. Run it through water and hydrogen collects at one electrode, oxygen at the other, in a two-to-one ratio you can measure with two test tubes. The beauty salon borrowed the word later for killing hair follicles with a current, which is a different process wearing the same name.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1834
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
electrolytehydrolysisanalysisparalysis
In a sentence
Green hydrogen is made by electrolysis using renewable power.