magnet

英文詞源

magnet

magnet: [15] Greek Mágnēs líthos meant ‘stone from Magnesia’ – Magnesia being a region of Thessaly, Greece where much metal was obtained. It had two specific applications: to ore with magnetic properties, and to stone with a metallic sheen. And it was the first of these that has come down to English via Latin magnēta as magnet. English magnesia [14] comes from the same source, but it is not clear how it came to be applied (in the 18th century) to ‘magnesium oxide’, for it originally denoted, in the rather vague terminology of the alchemists, a ‘constituent of the philosopher’s stone’.

In the 17th century it was used for ‘manganese’ (and manganese [17] itself comes via French from Italian manganese, an alteration of medieval Latin magnēsia). And when the term magnesium [19] was introduced (at the suggestion of the chemist Sir Humphry Davy), it too at first denoted ‘manganese’.
=> magnesium, manganese

magnet (n.)

mid-15c. (earlier magnes, late 14c.), from Old French magnete "magnetite, magnet, lodestone," and directly from Latin magnetum (nominative magnes) "lodestone," from Greek ho Magnes lithos "the Magnesian stone," from Magnesia, region in Thessaly where magnetized ore was obtained. Figurative use from 1650s. It has spread from Latin to most Western European languages (German and Danish magnet, Dutch magneet, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese magnete), but it was superseded in French by aimant. Also see magnesia. Chick magnet attested from 1989.