Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Krypton
/ˈkrɪptɒn/noun
A colourless noble gas, element 36, present in trace amounts in air.
The Greek roots
κρυπτόν
kryptón
hidden thing
Literally: “the hidden one”
Follow a root:κρυπτόν1 word
The story of the word
William Ramsay and Morris Travers boiled down liquefied air in 1898 and found three gases hiding in the last few drops. They named them for the discovery itself: krypton the hidden, neon the new, xenon the stranger. Superman's home planet borrowed the name from the chemistry, not the other way round.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1898
Same family
cryptcrypticcryptographyapocrypha
In a sentence
Krypton fills some high-end lamps because it lets the filament burn hotter.