Priestley

[ preest-lee ]

noun

J(ohn) B(oyn·ton) [boin-tuhn, -tn], /ˈbɔɪn tən, -tn/, 1894–1984, English novelist.
Joseph, 1733–1804, English chemist, author, and clergyman.

Words Nearby Priestley

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use Priestley in a sentence

Miranda Priestley berating her magazine underlings in The Devil Wears Prada.
Streep Tease | Jace Lacob | October 9, 2009 | THE DAILY BEAST
But until the time of Priestley few ever disputed the advantages derivable from a National Church.
The English Church in the Eighteenth Century | Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
At a later period he had been attracted by Hartley, Berkeley, and Priestley.
The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) | Leslie Stephen
It may, I think, be said that Hales deserved the title usually given to Priestley, viz.
Makers of British Botany; a collection of biographies by living botanists | Various
Priestley broke his leg and lost his case, and legal history does not record his future career.
The Law and the Poor | Edward Abbott Parry

The failure of Priestley, the Lincoln butcher boy, settled the law of America as completely as it did the law of this country.
The Law and the Poor | Edward Abbott Parry

British Dictionary definitions for Priestley

Priestley

/ (ˈpriːstlɪ) /

noun

J (ohn) B (oynton). 1894–1984, English author. His works include the novels The Good Companions (1929) and Angel Pavement (1930) and the play An Inspector Calls (1946)
Joseph. 1733–1804, English chemist, political theorist, and clergyman, in the US from 1794. He discovered oxygen (1774) independently of Scheele and isolated and described many other gases

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for Priestley

Priestley

[ prēst′lē ]

British chemist who discovered oxygen (1774) and 10 other gases, including hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide, and ammonia.

biography For Priestley

Raised a strict Calvinist, Joseph Priestley originally hoped to become a minister, but his exposure to and interest in more liberal theological and philosophical issues ultimately led him to the calling of science. When Priestley met Benjamin Franklin in 1766, Franklin's enthusiasm for experimentation with electricity inspired Priestley to conduct his own experiments. One of Priestley's first discoveries was that graphite conducts electricity. Intrigued by the quality of the air emitted by fermentation at a nearby brewery, he later developed an improved technique for isolating and storing gases-at the time understood as varieties of air-in sealed glass vessels. Priestley also noted that the damage done to air by the respiration of animals, which slowly rendered it less and less life-sustaining for animals, was reversed by the respiration of plants. Using a magnifying glass to focus the Sun's rays on a piece of mercuric oxide and capturing the emitted gas, he discovered that this gas made a candle burn more brightly and could keep a mouse alive while all the other gases he tested extinguished the candle's flame and killed the mice. Priestley did not appreciate the full implications of his discovery, however. After he discussed his results with the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, Lavoisier repeated Priestley's experiments, showing that combustion required the presence of Priestley's gas and implied that air was not an element but was made up of various parts. Lavoisier named the gas oxygen, and the modern theory of combustion was born.

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