Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Phlogiston

Phlo·gis′ton, n. [NL., fr. Gr. φλογιστός burnt, set on fire, fr. φλογίζειν to set on fire, to burn, fr. φλόξ, φλογός, a flame, blaze. See Phlox.] (Old Chem.) The hypothetical principle of fire, or inflammability, regarded by Stahl as a chemical element.

☞ This was supposed to be united with combustible (phlogisticated) bodies and to be separated from incombustible (dephlogisticated) bodies, the phenomena of flame and burning being the escape of phlogiston. Soot and sulphur were regarded as nearly pure phlogiston. The essential principle of this theory was, that combustion was a decomposition rather than the union and combination which it has since been shown to be.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.