Regasify

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To transform a liquid substance into its gaseous state after having been cooled or compressed into a liquid form
2. The act of changing a substance from liquid back into gas for utilization or processing
3. To convert a liquid back into gas for applications such as energy production or chemical synthesis

Etymology: The verb "regasify" is simply "re-" attached to "gasify", so its story is really the story of "gasify" with a prefix added. "Gasify" is itself a recent coinage: it was built from "gas", a word that the Flemish chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont invented in the 1600s from the Greek "chaos", meaning the void or primordial emptiness, and then "-ify", a suffix that carries the sense "to make into". Turning a solid or liquid into gas is therefore literally "making gas" from a substance. The prefix "re-" comes from Latin, where it meant "back" or "again", and reached English through Old French. Adding it to "gasify" gives the sense of converting something back into a gaseous state after it has been liquefied. That reversal is the whole point of the word in practice: liquefied natural gas is shipped as a liquid, then regasified at a terminal before being piped to customers.

Synonyms: gasify

Antonyms: liquefy