Also 7 -sphære, -sphear. [ad. mod.L. atmosphæra, f. Gr. ἀτμό-ς vapor + σφαῖρα ball, sphere.]
1. a. The spheroidal gaseous envelope surrounding any of the heavenly bodies. b. esp. The mass of aeriform fluid surrounding the earth; the whole body of terrestrial air.
The name was invented for the ring or orb of vapor or ‘vaporous air’ supposed to be exhaled from the body of a planet, and so to be part of it, which the air itself was not considered to be; it was extended to the portion of surrounding air occupied by this, or supposed to be in any way ‘within the sphere of the activity’ of the planet (Phillips, 1696); and finally, with the progress of science, to the supposed limited aeriform environment of the earth or other planetary or stellar body. (It is curious that the first mention of an atmosphere is in connection with the Moon, now believed to have none.)
1638. Wilkins, New World, I. x. (1707), 76. There is an Atmosphæra, or an Orb of Gross, Vaporous Air immediately encompassing the Body of the Moon.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 4. That subtile Body that immediately incompasses the Earth, and is filled with all manner of exhalations, and from thence commonly known by the name of the Atmosphere.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., 208. The sun and planets and their atmospheres.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Among some of the more accurate writers, the atmosphere is restrained to that part of the air next the earth, which receives vapours and exhalations; and is terminated by the refraction of the sun’s light.
1867. E. Denison, Astron. without Math., 56. The earth’s atmosphere decreases so rapidly in density, that half its mass is within 31/2 miles above the sea; and at 80 miles high there can be practically no atmosphere.
1881. Stokes, in Nature, No. 625. 597. In the solar atmosphere there is a cooling from above.
2. transf. A gaseous envelope surrounding any substance.
1863. Watts, Dict. Chem., I. 431. Thus we speak of the atmosphere of oxygen which spongy platinum attracts to its surface, or of the reduction of a metal in an atmosphere of hydrogen.
1876. Tait, Rec. Adv. Phys. Sc., xiii. 321. I shall simply put this atmosphere of coal gas … outside the bulb.
3. † a. A supposed outer envelope of effective influence surrounding various bodies; esp. Electrical Atmosphere, that surrounding electrified bodies (obs.). b. Magnetic Atmosphere, the sphere within which the attractive force of the magnet acts.
1668. Phil. Trans., III. 851. Notes and Trials about the Atmospheres of Consistent Bodies.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., Atmosphere of Solid or Consistent Bodies, is a kind of sphere formed by the effluvia, or minute corpuscles, emitted from them.
1750. Franklin, Lett., Wks. 1840, V. 228. The additional quantity [of electrical fluid] does not enter, but forms an electrical atmosphere.
4. fig. Surrounding mental or moral element, environment.
1797–1803. Foster, in Life & Corr. (1846), I. 163. An extensive atmosphere of Consciousness.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, ii. (1878), 36. He lives in a perfect atmosphere of strife, blood, and quarrels.
1859. Mill, Liberty, 116. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
5. The air in any particular place, esp. as affected in its condition by heat, cold, purifying or contaminating influences, etc.; = AIR sb. 4.
1767. Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wom., I. vi. 239. The suffocating atmosphere of … a small apartment.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., I. 126. No amount of blaze would raise the atmosphere of the room ten degrees.
6. A pressure of 15 lbs. on the square inch, which is that exerted by the atmosphere on the earth’s surface.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 396. Congealed under the pressure of many hundred, or many thousand atmospheres.
1881. Lubbock, in Nature, No. 618. 411. Hydrogen was liquefied by Pictet under a pressure of 650 atmospheres.
7. Comb. Atmosphereful sb. (cf. bucketful); atmosphereless a., without an atmosphere.
1879. Black, Macleod of D., xxiii. A whole atmosphereful of pheasants.
1848. Morn. Chron., 5 June, 6/5. Who [can] walk and study in the atmosphere-less age in which artists now seem to paint, without imbibing of the infection, and bringing their canvass to a level of those which surround them?
1858. J. Bennet, Nutrition, iii. 75. Our cold satellite, the atmosphereless moon.
