Methane

How to spell methane

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce methane

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does methane mean?

1. nounA colourless, odourless flammable gas that is the main component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse contributor.

Methane in a sentence

• The sensors detected a dangerous build-up of methane in the mine.

• Cattle farming releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Where does methane come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Methane is a child of nineteenth-century chemistry, coined around 1866 from the chemical stem 'meth-' and the systematic ending '-ane' that chemists attach to saturated hydrocarbons (the same ending you see in ethane, propane, and butane). The 'meth-' part traces back to the word methyl, itself assembled by French and German chemists from two Greek roots: methy, meaning 'wine' or, more loosely, an intoxicating spirit, and hyle, meaning 'wood' or 'matter'. The combination literally pointed to 'spirit of wood', because methanol, the simplest related alcohol, was first obtained by heating wood and was long called wood spirit. When chemists worked out the family of compounds, the gas built from a single carbon atom took the name methane. The spelling holds onto the Greek-flavoured 'th' from methy, which is the part most likely to trip a writer who hears the word as a single smooth syllable run.

How the word is built

• meth- (from methyl, the radical in wood spirit/methanol)
• -ane (suffix marking a saturated hydrocarbon)