Wiktionary:Word of the day/2023/March 24

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dephlogisticated air n

(chemistry, historical) Oxygen gas, as originally thought to be air deprived of phlogiston (“the hypothetical fiery principle formerly assumed to be a necessary constituent of combustible bodies and to be given up by them in burning”). The English chemist Joseph Priestley, who coined the term, was born on this day 290 years ago in 1733.

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