Protyle

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A hypothetical primal substance from which all chemical elements were once believed to have originated
2. The imagined original matter, a single basic stuff thought to lie behind all the chemical elements
3. An early theoretical idea of a common primordial material from which every element was supposedly built

Etymology: Aristotle gave the idea behind this word its philosophical shape. In his work on physics and metaphysics, he used "hyle", a Greek word meaning timber or raw wood, for the underlying stuff that everything is made of, the material that takes on form. Philosophers borrowed the sense, so that "hyle" came to mean pure substance before any shape or quality is imposed on it. "Protyle" builds on that idea with the Greek prefix "proto-", meaning first or original. It was formed in English to name a hypothetical primal matter, a single basic substance from which all the elements of the periodic table might be built. The word therefore combines a prefix meaning "first" with a term whose literal sense was simply building timber, and it names a stuff that has never been isolated.

Synonyms: prima materia