# Before electricity, how was static electricity described/explained?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 13, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729 "2012-02-13T18:57:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729/1 "2012-02-13T18:57:27Z")

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During the middle ages and before, the shock just before touching something large and metal must have been as common an occurrence on cold days as it is now. How did thinkers or “natural philosophers” explain static electricity before electricity itself was known?

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**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729/2 "2012-02-13T19:24:00Z")

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> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> During the middle ages and before, the shock just before touching something large and metal must have been as common an occurrence on cold days as it is now. How did thinkers or “natural philosophers” explain static electricity before electricity itself was known?

Evil spirits

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**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729/3 "2012-02-13T19:33:25Z")

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Here’s a little [history](http://library.thinkquest.org/6064/history.html). I’ve heard that ‘static cling’ was assumed to be magnetism. I don’t what they thought about static discharge, but I’ll guess they thought it was similar to lightening.

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**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729/4 "2012-02-13T19:36:50Z")

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We’ve been here before:

> **[How was Static Shock explained centuries ago?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=597746)**
>
> This winter, I have been zapped countless time by static shock and I wondering how people explained static shock prior to our enlightenment. Was static electricity part of the accusations of witchcraft?

To quote myself, concerning a couple of the guys in **TriPolar** ’s link:

> [@](#):
>
> One of the early scientific investigators was William Gilbert, 16th century. He thought rubbing an object robbed it of some of it’s fluids or “humors” and caused an “effluvium” in the air around the body. Pretty good for the level of knowledge available in his era.
> 
> Thales (around 600 BC) thought all matter possessed life to some degree - Hylozoism. He may have thought that the properties of lodestone and rubbed amber, which he observed, were because of the life force it possessed.

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**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729/5 "2012-02-13T19:45:22Z")

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> [@yabob](#):
>
> We’ve been here before:
> 
> [How was Static Shock explained centuries ago? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=597746)

Funny, it was almost exactly one year ago. Maybe this is a question someone has every February, when they are just damn sick of the cold and cold-related things like static shock.

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**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729/6 "2012-02-13T20:39:59Z")

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_Elektron_ was the Greek word for amber, so the phenomenon has been known by words with the _electr…_ root at least since Thales (the first Greek philosopher, and thus, in effect, the founder of the tradition of critical, scientific thought), who studied the electrostatic properties of rubbed amber. He was in his prime around 585BC. (We can pinpoint the date because he predicted a solar eclipse that modern astronomy tells us must have occurred in that year.)

So, in the middle ages (and long before) people - educated European people, at any rate - would have referred to electricity by some word recognizably similar to “electricity.” (No doubt the exact form varied from time to time and place to place.)

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**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/before-electricity-how-was-static-electricity-described-explained/612729/7 "2012-02-13T20:58:29Z")

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> [@njtt](#):
>
> _Elektron_ was the Greek word for amber, so the phenomenon has been known by words with the _electr…_ root at least since Thales (the first Greek philosopher, and thus, in effect, the founder of the tradition of critical, scientific thought), who studied the electrostatic properties of rubbed amber. He was in his prime around 585BC. (We can pinpoint the date because he predicted a solar eclipse that modern astronomy tells us must have occurred in that year.)
> 
> So, in the middle ages (and long before) people - educated European people, at any rate - would have referred to electricity by some word recognizably similar to “electricity.” (No doubt the exact form varied from time to time and place to place.)

I’d be interested in seeing some sources for this. My understanding was that the use of “electric” in the modern sense only got going around the Enlightenment period, when Gilbert and Bacon and the like started experimenting with the properties of charge. It was apparently used before then, but just meant “amber-like” rather than “pertaining to charge.”

For what it’s worth, here’s the etymology entry on “electric” from the OED:

> [@](#):
>
> **Etymology:** \< post-classical Latin _electricus_ of amber, amber-like (1267, 1622 in British sources), electrical (1600, 1620, 1686 in British sources; apparently earliest in W. Gilbert _De magnete_ (1600); also in Gilbert as neuter plural noun, _electrica_, denoting things with the same power of attraction as amber) \< classical Latin _ēlectrum_ amber (see electrum n.) + -icus -ic suffix. Compare French _électrique_ (1678 or earlier, after English). Compare slightly earlier _electrical_ adj.