fixed air en · NOUN
Etymology
Coined by Scottish chemist Joseph Black in 1756 because it can be absorbed, or fixed, by strong bases.
Meanings
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(historical, uncountable) Carbon dioxide; carbonic acid.
The wild gas, the fixed air is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgement until […] we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and disturbed surface.
1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford, published 2009, page 8:Lavoisier then elucidated the exchange of gases in the lungs: the air inhaled was converted into Black's fixed air, whereas the nitrogen (‘azote’) remained unchanged.
1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 246: