fixed air

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English

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Etymology

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Coined by Scottish chemist Joseph Black in 1756 because it can be absorbed, or fixed, by strong bases.

Noun

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fixed air (uncountable)

  1. (chemistry, now historical) Carbon dioxide; carbonic acid.
    • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford, published 2009, page 8:
      The wild gas, the fixed air is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgement until […] we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and disturbed surface.
    • 1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 246:
      Lavoisier then elucidated the exchange of gases in the lungs: the air inhaled was converted into Black's fixed air, whereas the nitrogen (‘azote’) remained unchanged.

References

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