Oxide

How to spell oxide

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce oxide

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does oxide mean?

1. nounA compound formed when oxygen combines with another element.

Oxide in a sentence

• The red flaking on the old gate was simply iron oxide.

• Titanium oxide gives white paint its bright, opaque finish.

Where does oxide come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the French oxide (also spelled oxyde), a term coined by French chemists in the 1780s during the chemical revolution led by Antoine Lavoisier. It was assembled from oxygène, the name Lavoisier gave to the newly understood gas, plus the ending of acide, since oxygen was wrongly believed at the time to be the essential ingredient of every acid. The oxygène element itself was built from the Greek oxys, meaning 'sharp' or 'sour, acid', joined to a root meaning 'to produce', so the whole idea was 'acid-former'. English borrowed oxide directly from French around 1790 as chemistry became an international science. The same Greek oxys for 'sharp' lurks behind words like 'oxymoron', a phrase that is pointedly sharp and dull at once, which is a handy reminder that the spelling begins with ox, not ax.

How the word is built

• ox- (from Greek oxys: sharp, acid; the same root as oxygen)
• -ide (chemical suffix marking a binary compound)