köken: Introduced by the Swiss physician Christopher Girtanner in 1791. Roughly equivalent to (er)sticken + Stoff, so called for its ability to quench fire.
köken: Borrowing or calque of German Stickstoff, from stikken (“to suffocate”) + stof (“matter”), referring to the fact that an animal placed on pure nitrogen suffocates.
köken: Compound of 窒 (chitsu, “obstruction”) + 素 (so, “element”), calque of Dutch stikstof (literally “choke stuff”). Compare also German Stickstoff, Luxembourgish Stéckstoff, Danish kvælstof. Coined by Japanese scientist Udagawa Yōan in 1834 in his book 遠西医方名物考補遺 (“窒素”).
köken: From kväva (“suffocate”). Coined by Swedish scientists Pehr von Afzelius and Anders Gustaf Ekeberg in 1795. (In contrast to the other main component of air, oxygen, it suffocates life and fire). Compare origin of German Stickstoff and Dutch stikstof.
köken: Back-formation from a dialectal verb typehtyä (“to be smothered, be extinguished”) (for semantics, compare German Stickstoff from (er)sticken (“to smother”)). Coined by Finnish folk poetry researcher, translator and journalist Julius Krohn in 1862.