Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name formerly given to nitrogen, because it is unfit for respiration.
  • noun A whip or switch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare Same as nitrogen.
  • noun Sp. Amer. A switch or whip.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic Nitrogen.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an obsolete name for nitrogen

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French azote, from Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-, "without") + ζωή (zōē, "life"). Named by Antoine Lavoisier, who saw it as the part of air which cannot sustain life.

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Examples

  • The term azote and symbol Az are still retained by the French chemists.

    An Elementary Study of Chemistry William McPherson

  • On plunging a combustible body into the remaining air, it is instantly extinguished; an animal in the same situation is immediately deprived of life: from this latter circumstance this air has been called azote, or azotic gas.

    Popular Lectures on Zoonomia Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease Thomas Garnett 1784

  • [3] The other, from its property of destroying life, is called azote, and forms of course the remaining three fourths of the atmosphere.

    A Lecture on the Preservation of Health Thomas Garnett 1784

  • What has been absorbed is the vital air, and what remains, the azote, which is incapable of supporting flame.

    A Lecture on the Preservation of Health Thomas Garnett 1784

  • Another part of the atmosphere, which is called azote, is perpetually set at liberty from animal and vegetable bodies by putrefaction or combustion, from many springs of water, from volatile alcali, and probably from fixed alcali, of which there is an exhaustless source in the water of the ocean.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • The common air of the atmosphere appears by the analysis of Dr. Priestley and other philosophers to consist of about three parts of an elastic fluid unfit for respiration or combustion, called azote by the French school, and about one fourth of pure vital air fit for the support of animal life and of combustion, called oxygene.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • The French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier named nitrogen azote, meaning "without life."

    Nitrogen 2009

  • The French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier named nitrogen azote, meaning without life.

    About.com Chemistry 2010

  • The French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier named nitrogen azote, meaning without life.

    About.com Chemistry 2010

  • The French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier named nitrogen azote, meaning without life.

    About.com Chemistry 2010

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