Wiktionary:Word of the day/March 24

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dephlogisticated air n

(chemistry, historical) Oxygen gas, as originally thought to be air deprived of phlogiston (“the hypothetical fiery principle formerly assumed to be a necessary constituent of combustible bodies and to be given up by them in burning”). The English chemist Joseph Priestley, who coined the term, was born on this day in 1733.

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