Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Pneumatic
/njuːˈmætɪk/adjective
Worked by compressed air, or filled with air.
The Greek roots
πνεῦμα
pneûma
breath, wind, spirit
Literally: “of the breath”
Follow a root:πνεῦμα1 word
The story of the word
πνεῦμα covered breath, wind and spirit at once, which is how the Holy Spirit and a tyre inflator come to share a root. Engineers took the physical end of the meaning in the 1650s, when the air pump was the newest instrument in Europe and vacuum was a live controversy. Pneumonia belongs to the neighbouring πνεύμων, the lung.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1650s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
pneumoniaapnoeapneumatologydyspnoea
In a sentence
The doors close on a pneumatic ram, which is why they hiss.