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dephlogisticated air

Syllables: de·phlo·gis·ti·cat·ed airUK/diːflə(ʊ)ˌd͡ʒɪstɪkeɪtid ˈɛə//difləˌd͡ʒɪstəˌkeɪtid ˈɛɚ/

dephlogisticated air noun: oxygen gas, as originally thought to be air deprived of phlogiston (“the hypothetical fiery principle formerly assumed to be a necessary constituent of combustible bodies and to be given up by them in burning”).

Noun

dephlogisticated air (uncountable)

  1. (historical) oxygen gas, as originally thought to be air deprived of phlogiston (“the hypothetical fiery principle formerly assumed to be a necessary constituent of combustible bodies and to be given up by them in burning”).
    • [page 387] As I think I have that ſufficiently proved, the fitneſs of air for reſpiration depends on its capacity to receive the phlogiſton exhaled from the lungs, this ſpecies may not improperly be called, dephlogiſticated air. […] [page 392] Upon the whole, I think, it may ſafely be concluded...1775 March 15 and May 25, Joseph Priestley, “XXXVIII. An Account of Further Discoveries in Air. […]”, in Philosophical Transactions, Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and...
    • [Joseph] Priestley's experiments were performed at intervals from August 1774 till March 1775, and at that date it occurred to him to mix with his dephlogisticated air some nitric oxide over water; absorption took place, and he concluded that he might assume his new air to be respirable.1896, William Ramsay, “The Discovery of ‘Dephlogisticated Air’ by Priestley and by Scheele—the Overthrow of the Phlogistic Theory by Lavoisier”, in The Gases of the Atmosphere: The History of Their...
    Synonyms:
    dephlogisticated gas

Synonyms of dephlogisticated air

Origin of dephlogisticated air

From dephlogisticated (“from which the phlogiston has been removed”) + air, coined by the English chemist Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) in a 1775 article entitled “An Account of Further Discoveries in Air” published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: see the quotation.

Words that rhyme with dephlogisticated air

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Questions about dephlogisticated air

What does dephlogisticated air mean?
Dephlogisticated air means oxygen gas, as originally thought to be air deprived of phlogiston (“the hypothetical fiery principle formerly assumed to be a necessary constituent of combustible bodies and to be given up by them in burning”).
What part of speech is dephlogisticated air?
Dephlogisticated air is a noun.
How do you pronounce dephlogisticated air?
Dephlogisticated air is pronounced /diːflə(ʊ)ˌd͡ʒɪstɪkeɪtid ˈɛə/ (UK).

Words near dephlogisticated air in the dictionary

  1. dephlegmed
  2. dephlegming
  3. dephlegms
  4. dephlogisticate
  5. dephlogisticated
  6. dephlogisticated air
  7. dephlogisticates
  8. dephlogisticating
  9. dephlogistication
  10. dephlogistications
  11. dephonologization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dephlogisticated air (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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