Other forms: oxygens
Oxygen is the gas that every breath takes in and every fire needs. It makes up about a fifth of the air, and nothing that burns or breathes works without it.
The chemical symbol is O and the gas in the air is O2, two atoms joined. In hospitals, on oxygen means receiving it through a mask or tube. Figuratively, oxygen means whatever keeps something alive: the oxygen of publicity is a fixed phrase from a famous political speech, meaning the attention that sustains a cause. Note oxygen tank, oxygen mask and oxidise, which all belong to the same family.
1nounoxygenThe gas in the air that living things breathe and fires need.
“The room was sealed and the oxygen ran out.”
2nounwhateverWhatever keeps something going, in figurative use.
“Coverage is the oxygen a campaign like that runs on.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
oxygen is a gas.
French oxygène was coined by Lavoisier from Greek oxys, sharp or acid, and -genes, producing — the acid-maker. He was wrong: oxygen is not what makes acids acidic, hydrogen is. The name is a two-hundred-year-old error that every chemistry student now learns anyway.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eḱ-
French
oxygène
English, today
oxygen
Built from
Borrowed from French oxygène. Borrowed from French oxygène (originally in the form principe oxygène, a variant of principe oxigine ‘acidifying principle’, suggested by Lavoisier), from Ancient Greek ὀξύς (“sharp”) + γένος (“birth”), referring to oxygen's supposed role in the formation of acids. by surface analysis, en + oxy- + -gen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA