Chem. [f. AMIDO- + -GEN2 ‘producer.’] A name for the combination of nitrogen with two equivalents of hydrogen NH2 (equal to ammonia minus one of its hydrogen atoms), viewed as the hypothetical radical of the primary amides and amines.
1850. Daubeny, Atom. The., viii. (ed. 2), 248. Amidogen … seems to have no real independent existence, but to be a name expressive only of ammonia, in which 1 of its hydrogen atoms is replaced by an equivalent of some hydrocarbon.
1880. Cleminshaw, trans. Wurtz’ Atom. The., 263. All attempts have as yet been unsuccessful to isolate double amidogen.
