Od

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A hypothetical vital force, proposed in the nineteenth century, that was thought to permeate living things and natural phenomena alike
2. An unproven energy once believed by some thinkers to flow through all living bodies and magnetic objects in nature
3. A mysterious life-giving current that a nineteenth-century theorist claimed could be sensed around crystals, magnets and people

Etymology: Carl Reichenbach, a German chemist, philosopher and industrialist, coined "Od" in the mid-nineteenth century for a supposed life force that he believed pervaded living things, magnets and crystals. He chose the syllable arbitrarily: it was a name for a hypothesis, not a borrowing from an existing concept. Reichenbach claimed to have detected this force through sensitive people who could see glowing emanations in darkened rooms, a claim that did not survive scientific scrutiny. The English word came from German, where it was simply Reichenbach's invented term. Its resemblance to "God" is a coincidence of sound rather than a true link, since the syllable was chosen for its brevity and was not derived from that word. Its use has remained confined to discussions of pseudoscience and the history of parapsychology.

Synonyms: odyl, odyle