atmosphere
pronunciation
How to pronounce atmosphere in British English:
UK [ˈætməsfɪə(r)]
How to pronounce atmosphere in American English:
US [ˈætməsfɪr]
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- Noun:
- a particular environment or surrounding influence
- a unit of pressure: the pressure that will support a column of mercury 760 mm high at sea level and 0 degrees centigrade
- the mass of air surrounding the Earth
- the weather or climate at some place
- the envelope of gases surrounding any celestial body
- a distinctive but intangible quality surrounding a person or thing
Word Origin
- atmosphere
- atmosphere: [17] Etymologically, atmosphere means ‘ball of vapour’. It was coined as modern Latin atmosphaera from Greek atmós ‘vapour’ (related to áein ‘blow’, ultimate source of English air) and sphaira ‘sphere’. Its original application was not, as we would now understand it, to the envelope of air encompassing the Earth, but to a mass of gas exhaled from and thus surrounding a planet; indeed, in the first record of the word’s use in English, in 1638, it was applied to the Moon, which of course is now known to have no atmosphere. The denotation of the word moved forward with the development of meteorological knowledge.=> air, sphere
- atmosphere (n.)
- 1630s, atmosphaera (modern form from 1670s), from Modern Latin atmosphaera, from atmo-, comb. form of Greek atmos "vapor, steam" + spharia "sphere" (see sphere). Greek atmos is from PIE *awet-mo-, from root *wet- (1) "to blow" (also "to inspire, spiritually arouse;" see wood (adj.)). First used in English in connection with the Moon, which, as it turns out, practically doesn't have one. It is observed in the solary eclipses, that there is sometimes a great trepidation about the body of the moon, from which we may likewise argue an atmosphaera, since we cannot well conceive what so probable a cause there should be of such an appearance as this, Quod radii solares a vaporibus lunam ambitntibus fuerint intercisi, that the sun-beams were broken and refracted by the vapours that encompassed the moon. [Rev. John Wilkins, "Discovery of New World or Discourse tending to prove that it probable there may be another World in the Moon," 1638] Figurative sense of "surrounding influence, mental or moral environment" is c. 1800.
Example
- 1. The atmosphere inside the capsule was tense .
- 2. Contributing to this febrile atmosphere is an unspoken fear .
- 3. Meteors enter the earth 's atmosphere every day .
- 4. Nuclear radiation has been released directly into the atmosphere .
- 5. To be extinguished quite quickly in the thick atmosphere of the office elevator .