Chem. Also † stechi-, † stochi-, stoichiometry. [f. Gr. στοιχεῖο-ν element + -METRY.] The process or art of calculating or determining the equivalent and atomic weights of the elements participating in any chemical reaction; the science of estimating chemical elements; the branch of science concerned with the determination of atomic weights. (See also quot. 1880.)
The term was introduced by J. B. Richter in his Anfangsgründe der Stöchiometrie, oder Messkunst chemischer Elemente (1792), to denote the determination of the relative amounts in which acids and bases neutralize each other.
1807. T. Thomson, Chem., II. 559. I have not been able to procure a sight of Richter’s very curious … writings on Stechiometry, in which his observations on the fluates are to be found.
1825. W. Hamilton, Hand-bk. Terms Arts & Sci., Stochiometry, the Geometry of chemical elements.
1880. Tyndall, Heat, xviii. (ed. 6), 571. The doctrine of the conservation of force, or, as I should express it, Physical Stoichiometry.
1908. S. Young (title), Stoichiometry.
Hence Stoicheio-, stœchiometric, -al adjs.
1887. Brit. Jrnl. Photogr., 27 May, 330/2. Much too small [a proportion of colouring matter] to represent a stoichiometrical composition.
1892. Nature, 24 March, 497/2. The late Prof. Stas had left … a … memoir describing the results of several further stōchiometrical investigations. Ibid. The stōchiometric relation of silver to potassium chloride.
