Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Thermal
/ˈθɜːrməl/adjective
Having to do with heat, or a rising column of warm air.
The Greek roots
θερμός
thermós
hot, warm
Literally: “hot”
Follow a root:θερμός11 words
The story of the word
Buffon used French thermal in the 1750s of hot springs, and English took it over at once with the same narrow meaning. Physics widened it, then gliding narrowed it again in the 1930s to the invisible column of warm air a sailplane circles to gain height. θερμός is also why a vacuum flask is a Thermos, a trade name from the early 1900s.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1750s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
thermometerthermodynamicshypothermiaisotherm
In a sentence
The buzzard found a thermal and stopped flapping altogether.