Etymology
The word naphtha came from Latin and Greek where it derived from Persian. In Ancient Greek, it was used to refer to any sort of petroleum or pitch. It appears in Arabic as "nafţ" (نَفْط) ("petroleum"), and in Hebrew as "neft" (נֵפְט). Arabs and Persians have used and distilled petroleum for tar and fuel from ancient times, as attested in local Greek and Roman histories of the region.
The second book of the Maccabees in the Septuagint, part of the Old Testament canon in the major Christian denominations: Latin and Greek Catholic, and Greek and Russian Orthodox, uses the word "naphtha" to refer to a miraculous flammable liquid. This account says that Nehemiah and the levitical priests associated with him called the liquid "nephthar," meaning "purification," but "most people" call it naphtha(or Nephi).
Naphtha is the root of the word naphthalene. The second syllable of "naphtha" can also be recognised in phthalate.
It also enters the word napalm from "naphthenic acid and palmitic acid", as the first napalm was made from a mixture of naphthenic acid with aluminium and magnesium salts of palmitic acid.
In older usage, "naphtha" simply meant crude oil, but this usage is now obsolete in English.
The Ukrainian and Belarusian word нафта (lit. nafta), the Russian word нефть (lit. neft') and the Persian naft ( نفت) mean "crude oil". Also, in Italy, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia nafta (нафта in Cyrillic transcription) is colloquially used to indicate Diesel fuel and crude oil. In Slovakia, nafta was historically used for both Diesel fuel and crude oil, but its use for crude oil is now obsolete and it generally indicates diesel fuel (crude oil is referred to as ropa). In Bulgarian, nafta means diesel fuel, while neft means crude oil. "Nafta" is also used in Argentina and Uruguay to refer to gasoline. In Poland, the "birthplace" of petroleum industry, word "nafta" means kerosene
There is a conjecture that the Greek word naphtha came from the Indo-Iranian god name Apam Napat, which occurs in Vedic and in Avestic.
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Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
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“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
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