7. Nitrogenium (Nitrogen) - Elementymology & Elements Multidict

Elementymology & Elements Multidict

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7
Nitrogenium Nitrogen
Stikstof – Stickstoff – Azote – Nitrógeno – 窒素 – Азот – 氮
N
Multilingual dictionary

Indo-European
Nitrogenium Latin

— Germanic
Stikstof Afrikaans
Nitrogen, Kvælstof Danish
Stickstoff German
Nitrogen English
Køvievni Faroese
Stikstof Frisian (West)
Nitur, ²Köfnunarefni Icelandic
Stéckstoff Luxembourgish
Stikstof Dutch
Nitrogen Norwegian
Kväve Swedish

— Italic
Nitrochén Aragonese
Nitroghenu Aromanian
Nitróxenu Asturian
Nitrogen Catalan
Nitrógeno Spanish
Azote French
Azot Friulian
Nitróxeno Galician
Azoto Italian
Azòot Lombard
Azòt Occitan
Nitrogénio Portuguese
Azot, ²Nitrogen Romanian - Moldovan

— Slavic
Азот [Azot] Bulgarian
Azot, ²Dušik Bosnian
Азот [azot] Belarusian
Dusík Czech
Dušik Croatian
Tãcheń Kashubian
Азот [Azot] Macedonian
Azot Polish
Азот [Azot] Russian
Dusík Slovak
Dušik Slovenian
Азот [Azot] Serbian
Азот [azot] Ukrainian

— Baltic
Azotas Lithuanian
Slāpeklis Latvian
Azuots Samogitian

— Celtic
Azot, Nitrogen Breton
Nitrogen Welsh
Nítrigin Gaelic (Irish)
Nìtrigin Gaelic (Scottish)
Neetragien Gaelic (Manx)
Nytrojen Cornish

— Other Indo-European
Αζωτο [azōto] Greek
Ազոտ [azot] Armenian
Azot[i] Albanian

— Indo-Iranian/Iranian
Nîtrojen, Azot Kurdish
Азот [azot] Ossetian
Нитроген [Nitrogen] Tajik

— Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan
নাইট্রোজেন [nāiṭrojena] Bengali
نیتروژن [nytrwžn] Persian
નાઇટ્રોજન [nāiṭrojana] Gujarati
नाइट्रोजन [nāiṭrojana] Hindi

Finno-Ugric
Lämmastik Estonian
Typpi Finnish
Nitrogén Hungarian
Азот [Azot] Komi
Азот [Azot] Mari
Азота [azota] Moksha
Hüdsäsnik Võro

Altaic
Azot Azerbaijani
Азот [Azot] Chuvash
Азот [azot] Kazakh
Азот [Azot] Kyrgyz
Азот [azot] Mongolian
Azot Turkish
ئازوت ['azot] Uyghur
Azot Uzbek

Other (Europe)
Nitrogenoa Basque
აზოტი [azoti] Georgian

Afro-Asiatic
نيتروجين [nītrūjīn] Arabic
חנקן [hankan] Hebrew
Najtroġin, ²Ażotu Maltese

Sino-Tibetan
Tham (氮) Hakka
窒素 [chisso] Japanese
질소 [jilso] Korean
ไนโตรเจน [naitrōchēn] Thai
Nitơ Vietnamese
[dan4 / daam6] Chinese

Malayo-Polynesian
Nitrógeno Cebuano
Nitrogen Indonesian
Hauota Māori
Nitrogen Malay

Other Asiatic
നൈട്രജന്‍ [naiṭrajanam] Malayalam
நைதரசன் [naitaracaṉ] Tamil

Africa
Azoti Lingala
Naetrojene Sesotho
Nitrojeni Swahili

North-America
Ehēcatehuiltic Nahuatl

South-America
Qullpachaq, ²Nitruhinu Quechua

Creole
Swariskotriki Sranan Tongo

Artificial
Nitrogeno Esperanto

New names
Nitron Atomic Elements
Azotc Dorseyville
memory peg

Odorless and colorless gas
melting point -210 °C; -346 °F
boiling point -196 °C; -320 °F
density 0.0013 g/cc; 0.078 pounds/cubic foot
1772 Daniel Rutherford, England
νιτρον (nitron) = salpeter + γεινομαι (geinomai) = to engender, bring forth
⇒ bringing forth salpeter (Greek)

History & Etymology

Daniel Rutherford It was known during the 18th century that air contains at least two gases, one of which supports combustion and life, and the other of which does not. In the 1770s several chemists studied the so-called "burnt" or "phlogisticated" air (N2; from Greek φλογιστος = burnt), as air without oxygen was then called, but Daniel Rutherford (1749-1819), a medical student in Scotland, was first to publish his discovery of "noxious air" (nitrogen) in his dissertation Disseratio inauguralis de aere fixo dicto, aut mephitico (Inaugural dissertation on the air called fixed or mephite), dated 12 September 1772. He showed that the air in which animals had breathed, even after removal of the exhaled carbon dioxide, was no longer able to burn a candle.
Before 1772 Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) wrote to Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) a letter describing burnt air by passing air repeatedly over red-hot charcoal and then removing the fixed air with caustic potash, he named it mephitic air. Also Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered it in this time.

Azote → Salpeterstoff → Nitrogène

In 1775-76 Antoine Lavoisier suggested that this gas was an element and proposed in 1789 the name Azote, because it did not support respiration and was therefore "lifeless". The name is derived from Greek α (a privativum meaning "the opposite of") and ζώω [zōō] = to life. In his Traité élémentaire de chimie of 1789 Lavoisier wrote:


Not everyone was satisfied with this name. Therefore Christoph Girtanner calls it Salpeterstoff because of its property being the basis for "Salpetersyra".
Jean Antoine Chaptal (1756-1832) supposed in his Éléments de chimie of 1790 the name nitrogène: a combination of the Greek words νιτρον [nitron] (cf. Natrium) = sodium carbonate, salpeter (in late Middle ages in use for potassium nitrate), and French géne from Greek γεινομαι (geinomai) = to engender, bring forth, (cf. Oxygen, where is made clear that in naming this element, Lavoisier referred to γεινομαι and not to γενναω (gennaō), to produce, as was assumed later). The name means "making soda/salpeter" (Cf. Sodium / Natrium.)).
An other proposed name was Alcaligène.

Variant names

As you see in the list to the left, derivations from nitrogène as well as azote are in use in the several languages. Other languages have their own form, usually related with "to suffocate", since you suffocate in air without oxygen:
  • German: ersticken = to suffocate, and Stoff = material.
  • Dutch: stikken = to suffocate, and stof = material.
  • Czech: dusit = to suffocate.
  • Japanese: 窒 = Chinese character for stop up, obstruct ("chitsu") and 素 "so" (elementary, principle, naked, or uncovered).
Geocoronium

During the eclipse of 1869, astronomers recorded unexpected spectral lines in the Sun's corona that they ascribed to the presence of a new element which they called Coronium (see Iron). Similar lines were later discovered to originate nearer the Earth; these were attributed to Geocoronium. The Swedish astrophysicist Bengt Edlén found in the 1950s that the lines thought to be caused by Geocoronium were produced by atomic Nitrogen emitting radiation in the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Chemistianity 1873
BAGEN
NITROGEN, Moderator to Queen Oxygen,
Is a colourless gaseous metalloid,
Lighter than Air, and without odour or taste.
It is uninflammable, and therefore
Per se extinguishes combustion and life,
Its presence in Air is wisely ordained
To delute the Oxygen with which it's found
In a diffused but not in a combined state.
Pure Nitrogen stifles all Animal
And Fuel combustion, yet it is not pois'nous.
J. Carrington Sellars, Chemistianity, 1873, p. 53-54
Further reading
  • Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 191-211.

Sources Index of Persons Index of Alleged Elements