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▪ I. ether|ˈiːθə(r)|
Also æther.
[a. L. æther, ad. Gr. αἰθήρ (in senses 1–3 below), f. root of αἴθ-ειν to kindle, burn, shine; cf. αἴθρα fair weather, f. same root.
The spelling æther is still not uncommon in senses 1–3, and occasionally occurs in sense 5. In the chemical sense 6 ether is the only form recognized by good authorities.]
I. Senses adopted from Greek (orig. through Latin; but now often used with direct reminiscence of passages in Gr. classic authors).
1. a. The clear sky; the upper regions of space beyond the clouds; the medium filling the upper regions of space, as the air fills the lower regions. Now poet. or rhetorical.
1587Golding De Mornay ix. 122 What will he answere to Plato, who saith that the Heauen or Skye is called Aether. 1718Pope Iliad xvi. 361 All the unmeasured aether flames with light. 1790Cowper Iliad xix. 431 Through ether down she darted. 1813Scott Trierm. iii. xxv, The wizard song at distance died, As if in ether borne astray. 1855Longfellow Hiaw. xvii. 236 The people..saw the wings of Pau-Puk-Keewis flapping far up in the ether. 1871R. Ellis Catullus lxiv. 206 The Ocean shook, and stormy the stars 'gan tremble in ether.
b. As the element breathed by the gods; ‘diviner air’.
1733Pope Ess. Man iii. 115 Whate'er of life all-quickening æther keeps..one nature feeds the vital flame. 1840Clough Amours de Voy. i. 4 A land wherein gods of the old time wandered, Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.
2. In ancient cosmological speculation conceived as an element filling all space beyond the sphere of the moon, and as the constituent substance of the stars and planets and of their spheres. The earliest Eng. use; now only Hist.
It was variously regarded as a purer form of fire or of air, or as differing in kind from all the ‘four elements’. By some it was supposed to be the constituent substance, or one of the constituents, of the soul.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. viii. v. (Addit. MS. 27944 fol. 107) Isidor seiþ þe ouere parties of fuyre & of ayer hatte Ether. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. 16 From the æther was made the heavens. Ibid. 493 The Pagans answer thus..we call God in the æther Jupiter. 1695Bp. Patrick Comm. Gen. i. 7 The thinner parts..made the æther, or higher firmament, wherein the sun and the planets are seated.
3. Air; respirable fluid.
1713Guardian No. 44 They sucked-in so condensed and poisonous an Aether. 1809N. Pinkney Trav. France 277 His senses are hailed..by the freshness of a pure æther.
II. Senses of modern development.
†4. As a general name for extremely subtle fluids, the existence of which was imagined or inferred; = aura 2, 3. Obs.
1691Ed. Taylor Behmen's Theos. Philos. xvi. 22 The Elements themselves pass into their Ethers. 1757Darwin Vapour in Phil. Trans. L. 252 There was no real opposition in the electric æther of glass, and that from wax.
fig.1791Boswell Johnson 1 July an. 1763, My mind was..strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian æther.
5. a. Physics. A substance of great elasticity and subtilty, formerly believed to permeate the whole of planetary and stellar space, not only filling the interplanetary spaces, but also the interstices between the particles of air and other matter on the earth; the medium through which the waves of light are propagated. Formerly also thought to be the medium through which radio waves and electromagnetic radiations generally are propagated. Sometimes called the luminiferous ether. Also attrib., as in ether-strain, ether-vibration, ether-wave.
Later views of the ether were that it provided a frame of reference for the universe, with respect to which Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism or other field equations are valid, but that it possibly lacked any material properties. Following the special theory of relativity, which assumed that there is no absolute frame of reference and which explained why the Michelson–Morley experiment failed to detect an ‘ether wind’, the concept was gradually discarded in scientific thought, and has received little support since the 1920s.
1644Digby Nat. Bodies xxxii. (1658) 342 The Ether..like an immense Ocean, tossed with all varieties of motion. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. 226 These phænomena are produced either by the intervention of air or æther or other such medium, that communicates the impulse from one body to another. 1704Newton Opticks (J.), Ether, like our air, may contain particles which endeavour to recede from one another. 1778Dict. Arts & Sc., æther, an imaginary fluid, supposed by several authors, both ancient and modern, to be the cause of gravity, heat, light, muscular motion, and, in a word, of every phænomenon in nature..Perrault represents it as 7200 times more rare than air; and Hook makes it more dense than gold itself. 1831Brewster Newton (1855) I. vi. 134 Descartes was the first philosopher who maintained the existence of an ether, a medium more subtle than air, filling the interstices of air. 1872Huxley Phys. ix. 219 The vibrations of ether..constitute the physical basis of light. 1878B. Taylor Deukalion iii. iii. 109 Our dark orb Drinks light from ether till it grows a star. 1924H. L. Brose tr. Born's Einstein's Theory Relativity iv. 75 So far as this conception of the ether is still used nowadays it is taken to mean nothing more than empty space associated with certain physical states or ‘fields’. 1935A. S. Eddington New Pathways in Sci. ii. 39 Some distinguished physicists maintain that modern theories no longer require an aether... I think all they mean is that, since we never have to do with space and aether separately, we can make one word serve for both; and the word they prefer is ‘space’. 1951E. T. Whittaker Hist. Theories Aether & Electricity (ed. 2) I. p. v, It seems absurd to retain the name ‘vacuum’ for an entity so rich in physical properties, and the historical word ‘aether’ may fitly be retained. 1961M. Čapek Philos. Impact Contemp. Physics xiv. 251 There are even now physicists who are looking hopefully toward aether as a clue to the explanation of micro⁓physical phenomena. 1965J. D. North Measure of Universe iii. 30 It was not long before attempts were being made to design an aether suitable for the representation of (Newtonian) gravitation. 1967Condon & Odishaw Handbk. Physics (ed. 2) vi. 158 It is not profitable to identify the mechanical ether of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the ‘polarizable vacuum’ of modern quantum field theories.
attrib.1879G. Allen Col. Sense i. 2 We must find out how the various modes of æther-waves..came originally to be distinguished from one another. 1884tr. Lotze's Metaph. iii. iii. 475 We cannot conceive any reason why a soul that feels ether-waves as colours must, in consistency, perceive air-waves as sounds. 1925O. Lodge Ether & Reality ii. 42 Fearfully rapid tremors or ether vibrations which can be excited electrically in a form which we know as X-rays. 1926B. Russell ABC of Relativity iii. 31 If there is an aether wind, it is clear that, relatively to an observer on the earth, light-signals will seem to travel faster with the wind than across it.
b. fig.
1831Carlyle Sart. Res. (1858) 33 We are—we know not what;—light-sparkles floating in the æther of Deity! 1835I. Taylor Spir. Despot. viii. 352 Measures which would have reduced the papal authority out of Italy to a thin ether visible to none but the clergy. a1849Poe Poems, Ulalume, She rolls through an ether of sighs.
c. Hence colloq., wireless, ‘the radio’.
1899Daily News 26 May 5/1 An age of ether-wave telegraphy and the Röntgen rays. 1923Daily Mail 22 Jan. 7 The climax of an entrancing week of ether⁓borne opera... She possesses the real ‘wireless voice’. 1930J. S. Huxley Bird-Watching p. vii, A..request I made over the ether for more information. 1933Discovery Sept. 280/1 The Babel of a thousand languages will soon assail him on the ether. 1961G. Millerson T.V. Production ii. 20 This interlacing method of scanning effectively saves ‘etherspace’, allowing more stations to work in any band. 1968Listener 4 July 26/1 The authentic atmosphere, the enthusiasm, ease and élan, can be felt over the ether, but it's even better on TV.
6. Chem.
a. The colourless, light, volatile liquid, (C4H10O) resulting from the action of sulphuric acid upon alcohol, whence it was also known as sulphuric ether, phosphoric, etc. ether. In popular and commercial use the incorrect name ‘sulphuric ether’ is still common, and the term ‘ether’ without prefixed word is ordinarily understood to refer to this substance, which in technical nomenclature is now distinguished as common ether, ethylic ether, or vinic ether, or ethyl oxide. It is an anæsthetic, and capable of producing extreme cold by its evaporation. The mod. systematic name is diethyl ether, usu. given as ethyl ether; ethoxyethane is occas. used. Also attrib. (Cf. etherical a. sense.)
1757Lewis in Phil. Trans. L. 161 The subtile fluid, prepared from vinous spirits with the vitriolic acid, called by the chemists æther. 1794Pearson ibid. LXXXIV. 389 Fifty grains of white lac readily dissolved in 500 grains measure of sulphuric æther. 1860Piesse Lab. Chem. Wonders 82 A solution of gold in æther applied to the surface of fine polished steel instruments gilds them. 1875Ure Dict. Arts II. 309 s.v., A duty of 1l. 5s. per gallon was fixed on sulphuric ether on the 25th September 1862. 1877Roberts Handbk. Med. (ed. 3) I. 63 Ether dissolves the fat and brings the striæ again into view.
attrib.1872H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. I. v. x. 611 æther-narcosis produces the loss of 1. The local sensibility of extreme parts..2. The intellectual powers. 1873J. P. Cooke New Chem. 18 And the globe will hold just as much ether-vapor as if neither of the other two were present. 1879H. Spencer Data of Ethics x. §64. 177 By ether-spray it [an external part of the body] is made very cold.
†b. Any of various compounds analogous to ethyl ether, formed by the reaction of ethyl alcohol and either an acid (other than sulphuric acid) or a salt and sulphuric acid. Obs.
The compounds were named according to the acid or salt from which they were derived: e.g. nitrous acid gave nitrous ether (now called ethyl nitrite, C2H5NO2). The extension of meaning of the word ether thus took place in two stages, the first including other acids in the preparation, the second other alcohols (giving sense 6 c).
1796R. Heron tr. Fourcroy's Elem. Chem. & Nat. Hist. III. 424 The nitric æther obtained by these processes is a yellow fluid, equally volatile and susceptible of evaporation with sulphuric æther. Ibid. 427 M. de la Planche, apothecary, has proposed the preparing of muriatic æther, by pouring..sulphuric acid and alcohol upon decrepitated muriate of soda. a1797Encycl. Brit. IV. 475/2 With the nitrous acid and spirit of wine, may also be made an exceedingly volatile liquor, called nitrous ether, to distinguish it from the vitriolic above mentioned. 1833Penny Cycl. I. 158 The acids which occasion the formation of the æthers already described do not enter at all into their composition. 1867C. L. Bloxam Chem. 522 Acetic ether..has a share in the perfume of cider, perry, vinegar, and of many wines. 1962M. P. Crosland Hist. Stud. Lang. Chem. v. i. 289 The authors [of the Méthode de nomenclature chimique (1787)] had decided that each of the aetherial compounds obtained by the reaction of alcohol with various acids should be known as ‘ether’ qualified by an adjective according to the acid used to prepare it, e.g. éther acétique (i.e. ethyl acetate). Most of these ‘ethers’ were what we should now call esters.
c. Hence by extension, the generic name of a large class of compounds, formed by the action of acids upon alcohols, divided into (1) simple ethers, of which the above Common Ether is the type, and which comprise the oxides, sulphides, chlorides, etc. of alcohol radicals. (2) compound ethers, in which the hydrogen of the hydroxyl of an alcohol is replaced by an acid-radical. In mod. use, ether is restricted to compounds of the type R2O (simple ethers) and ROR′ (mixed ethers), where R, R′ are organic groups (other than acyl groups and their analogues) linked directly to the oxygen by a carbon atom; compound ethers are now known as esters.
1838T. Thomson Chem. Org. Bodies 324 Sulphuric ether..possesses the characters of a base, being capable of neutralizing various (probably all) acids..These new compounds are at present very inaccurately termed ethers. 1850Daubeny Atom. Th. viii. (ed. 2) 257 An ether..bearing the same relation to fusel oil, which sulphuric ether does to alcohol. 1852Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1851 i. 129 Chemists..seem to consider it sufficient to place all those bodies, the basis of which is an ether, under the head of compound ethers. Ibid. 130 If the term, compound ether, be retained at all, it should be restricted to bodies..in which a simple ether is united with an ether radical, as the oxide of ethyl with methyl or with amyl. 1877Watts Fownes' Chem. II. 110 In the polyatomic alcohols, two hydroxyl groups may also be replaced by one atom of oxygen, giving rise to another class of oxygen ethers. The replacement of the hydrogen of the hydroxyl in an alcohol by acid radicles produces ethereal salts or compound ethers. 1950L. F. & M. Fieser Org. Chem. (ed. 2) vi. 134 Ethers are regarded more appropriately as derivatives of alcohols, from which they usually are prepared. 1964N. G. Clark Mod. Org. Chem. viii. 142 The ethers are all colourless, neutral, inflammable compounds, sparingly soluble in and less dense than water. 1966McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. V. 85 The names of the ethers correspond to the hydrocarbon groups present. Thus, CH3{b1}O{b1}CH3 is methyl ether, rarely dimethyl ether, and C6H5{b1}O{b1}CH3 is phenyl methyl ether.
▪ II. ether
var. of edder.
1649R. Hodges Plain. Direct. 28 You must either take out of the hedg the ether or the stake.
▪ III. ether
obs. form of either. |