actinobolism
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English
Etymology
Borrowed from New Latin actinobolismus, from Koine Greek ἀκτινοβόλος (aktinobólos, “emission of rays”) + -ismus.[1] Ἀκτινοβόλος is from ἀκτίς (aktís, “ray”) + βόλος (bólos, “a throw”). First attested in the 1650s.
Noun
actinobolism (uncountable)
- (Late Modern, obsolete) Radiation; emission or projection.
- 1654, Walter Charleton, A Fabrick of Science Natural, upon the Hypothesis of Atoms , page 210:
- Here is the only difference betwixt the Actinobolism of Light and Sounds; that the one is performed in time imperceptible, though not instantaneous: the other in moments distinguishable, which are more or less according to the degrees of distance betwixt the sonant and audient.
Usage notes
- Several 19th-century sources relate the term actinobolism, along with irradiation, to hypnotism.
References
- ^ “actinobolism, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
