Who was the first to use the term atom?

Answer 1

In 460 B.C. a Greek philosopher, Democritus, developed the idea of atoms. He asked this question: If you break a piece of matter in half, and then break it in half again, how many breaks will you have to make before you can break it no further? Democritus thought that it ended at some point, a smallest possible bit of matter. He called these basic matter particles, atoms, from Greek for "not breakable": a-tomos. (For the meaning of the two word parts, compare English words like "asymmetrical" and "tome".)

In India, a person named Kanaada/Kanada (known as the author of Vaisheshika Darshan) had the same idea, but obviously, he used a different word for the parts: "paramaanu" in Sanskrit, meaning "the ultimate particle". It's not clear when he lived exactly; estimates vary between 6th - 2nd Century BCE

Answer 2

Democritus.

The word "atom" comes from the two Greek affixes, a-tom; "a" is the privative affix meaning deprivation; "tom" comes from the Greek "temno" (τέμνω) meaning "slit", "slash", "cut". Therefore, atom means the "non-slit".

Another example for the affix "tom" is the Greek word "tomos" (τόμος) which also comes from the aforementioned affix "tom" and means "volume" (of a book) exactly because the volume of a book is slit in its pages.

Answer 3

It is difficult to answer this question because, Indians have told about Atom in many scripts especially in the mythological books which are very very early ancient. In Sanskrit you can find the translation for Atom in English language, In Tamil (one among the Indian language) it is mentioned as "ANU" (the N pronunciation is strong in this), Today if you ask who has coined the term Atom, it may be according to English, And that word will be originated from Greece. If you see the word by English it will be able for us to determinate the date of coinage of that word, but if you see according to Indian languages, it will not be so easy to do so.

V.Muralidharan.

Answer 4

The first person to use the word "atom" to describe matter was the Greek philosopher Democritus.

Answer 5

The first person to use the term atom was John Dalton. He was born into a Quaker family that resided in England.

Answer 6

the first person to use the term atom is Democritus. :)

Answer 7

It was Democritus whn used the term atom first

Answer 8

Democritus.