Etymology

dephlogisticated air

de·phlo·gis·ti·cat·ed air

Today it means: 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”). Full definition →

First used 1775
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The story

From dephlogisticated (“from which the phlogiston has been removed”) + air, coined by the English chemist Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) in a 1775 article entitled “An Account of Further Discoveries in Air” published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: see the quotation.

First known use, by meaning

  • from 1775 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”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.