Boyle
noun
Irish chemist who established that air has weight and whose definitions of chemical elements and chemical reactions helped to dissociate chemistry from alchemy (1627-1691)
Origin
* As an Irish surname, Anglicised from Irish Ó Baoithghill, possibly a compound of baoth (“vain, foolish”) and geall (“pledge”). * As a Scottish surname of Norman origin, from Biéville in Normandy, which could be from the Germanic personal name Boia + the common placename suffix -ville.
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Word family
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.