Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Proton
/ˈproʊtɒn/noun
A positively charged particle in the atomic nucleus whose count fixes the chemical element.
The Greek roots
πρῶτον
prôton
first thing
Literally: “the first one”
Follow a root:πρῶτον1 word
The story of the word
Rutherford proposed the name in 1920 for the hydrogen nucleus, the lightest positive unit. The choice was double-edged: πρῶτον means first, and it also nods to William Prout, who had argued in 1815 that every element is built from hydrogen, an idea then a century out of fashion and about to look prescient. Protyle was the rival name and lost. Protein comes from the same root, coined by Berzelius for the primary substance of living tissue.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1920
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
protocolprototypeproteinprotagonist
In a sentence
Add a proton and you no longer have carbon.