Chemical Terms in History: Polysemy and Meaning Transfers

Abstract

The vocabulary of the chemical sciences consists in part of words and phrases many of which are of a technical nature while others are derived from or related to everyday language. Many of the words are so-called polysemes, that is, they are used with different meanings either in common language or in the technical language of other sciences. The study of the origin and migration (or transfer) of words in science provides additional insights in how science has developed historically and interacted with the cultural domain. One type of word migration is between the scientific and socio-cultural domains, while another is restricted to the transfer between different scientific disciplines or sub-disciplines. This paper discusses and exemplifies a select number of chemically related words and phrases from a historical perspective. Among them are commonly known words such as ‘radical,’ ‘catalyze,’ and ‘litmus test’ which are used not only as technical terms in chemistry but also, in figurative and metaphorical senses, in everyday language.