3 November 2023
The element bromine, atomic number 35 and symbol Br, is a volatile, reddish-brown liquid at room temperature. It has a wide variety of commercial applications. Bromine is a borrowing of a French word brome, which in turn is a modern coinage based on the Greek βρωμος (bromos), meaning odoriferous or smelly.
The element was independently discovered by chemists Carl Jacob Löwig, in 1825, and Antoine Balard, in 1826. But Löwig delayed announcement of his discovery, allowing Balard to publish first and get the honor of naming the element. In his 1826 paper announcing his discovery, Balard says this about his choice of name:
M. Anglada me conseilla d’appeler cette substance Brôme, en déduisant cette denomination du grec βρωμος (fœtor). Ce nom se prête à merveille à la formation des denominations composes que nécessitent ses combinaisons, et je l’adopte pour la facilité du langage.
(Mr. Anglada advised me to call this substance Brome, deducing this name from the Greek βρωμος (fetor). This name lends itself wonderfully to the formation of the compound names that its combinations require, and I adopt it for ease of language.)
And appended to Balard’s paper is commentary by Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, Louis Jacques Thénard, and Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac which, among other things, discusses the name:
M. Balard a donné à la nouvelle substance le nom de muride; mais plusieurs objections pouvant être faites contre cette denomination, nous l’avons remplacée, avec le consentement de l’auteur, par celle de BRÔME, de βρωμος, mauvaise odeur.
(Mr. Balard gave the new substance the name muride; but several objections could be made against this name, we have replaced it, with the consent of the author, by that of BRÔME, from βρωμος, bad odor.)
The -ine suffix was added in English to conform with the names of other halogens existing at the time, chlorine and iodine.
Sources:
Balard, Antoine Jérôme. “Mémoire sur une Substance particulière contenue dans l’eau de la mer.” Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 32, 1826, 337–81 at 341. Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gallica.
Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements: Part 2—Turbulent Nineteenth Century.” Foundations of Chemistry, 8 December 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09451-w.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. bromine, n.
Vauquelin, Louis Nicolas, Louis Jacques Thénard, and Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac. “Rapport sur le Mémoire de M. Balard relative à une nouvelle Substance” (14 August 1826). Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 32, 1826, 382–84 at 382. Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gallica.
Image credit: Heinrich Pniok, 2009. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.