Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Phosphate
/ˈfɑsfeɪt/noun
A salt or ester of phosphoric acid, essential to bone, DNA and cellular energy transfer.
The Greek roots
φῶς
phôs
light
φέρειν
phérein
to carry, to bear
Literally: “of the light-bearer”
The story of the word
φωσφόρος was the Greek name for the morning star, the light-bringer, which Latin translated as Lucifer. Hennig Brand boiled down vats of urine in Hamburg in 1669 chasing gold and got a white waxy solid that glowed in the dark instead, and the old star name was handed to it. Phosphate is the salt, named in the 1790s under the new chemical nomenclature, and it is the backbone of DNA and the currency of ATP.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
phosphorusphotographmetaphorChristopher
In a sentence
Phosphate is mined in a handful of countries, which makes fertiliser a strategic question.