Gaseity

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state or quality of existing as a gas rather than as a solid or liquid, a term used in philosophy and physics
2. The condition of being gaseous, meaning having the form and properties of a gas instead of a solid or liquid
3. The property of a substance that makes it take the form of a gas, a rare term found in scientific and philosophical writing

Etymology: Gaseity is a philosophical term, and its history is mostly a matter of recent coinage rather than an ancient or folk origin. It is formed from "gas" plus the suffix "-eity," a formation that English borrowed from Latin "-itas" through Old French and Middle English forms of the same suffix. The pattern is the same one behind words such as "entity" and "ability," so the word's meaning is essentially "the quality or state of being a gas." The word appears in English in the 19th century, after "gas" itself had been introduced by the Flemish chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont in the early 1600s as an invented term for air-like substances. Because "gas" was a deliberate scientific coinage rather than a classical word, the derived form also belongs to modern technical vocabulary, and it has been used mostly in discussions of states of matter and in philosophy.