Meaning of oxygen in English

Table of contents
  1. Pronunciation
  2. Noun
    1. Etymology
    2. Definitions

  1. Pronunciation

    /ˈɑksədʒən/

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  1. Noun

    oxygen

    Etymology

    late 18th century: from French (principe) oxygène‘acidifying constituent’ (because at first it was held to be the essential component in the formation of acids)

    Definitions

    1. a nonmetallic bivalent element that is normally a colorless odorless tasteless nonflammable diatomic gas

    Examples

    • « constitutes 21 percent of the atmosphere by volume »
    • « the most abundant element in the earth's crust »

    Derived terms

Famous quotes

  • « Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend. »
    Margaret Thatcher
  • « Freedom is the oxygen of the soul. »
    Moshe Dayan
  • « On my job I end up jumping out of planes. Last week I got in an 18-wheeler and drove down a runway onto a skid track. The week before that they put me in a car and sunk me to the bottom of a lake to see if I could escape without an oxygen tank. »
    Rick Mercer
  • « I was interested by the idea that artists working in a totalitarian dictatorship or tsarist autocracy are secretly and slightly shamefully envied by artists who work in freedom. They have the gratification of intense interest: the authorities want to put them in jail, while there are younger readers for whom what they write is pure oxygen. »
    Tom Stoppard
  • « We found out the Gemini spacesuit was, well, oxygen was flowing to keep me cool as well as to breathe, and it wasn't good enough. My visor got fogged. »
    Gene Cernan

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