What is the difference between flammable and inflammable liquid

It is an oxidizer and does not catch fire. But oxygen can give rise to fire. The fire can be increased with the help of oxygen. The word inflammable has been derived from the Latin word 'inflammare,' wherein 'flammare' means 'to catch fire' and the prefix 'in' means to 'cause to. But when it comes to the difference between flammable and inflammable substances, the only difference between them is how readily the substances catch fire.

Out of these two terms, the term flammable is more appropriate and is widely used. On the other hand, inflammable is an older term than flammable because it was coined first. People were advised to use the term flammable to avoid confusion. Well, it is interesting to note that flammable substances are present in solid, liquid, and gaseous states. To determine the flammability of a particular substance, it is important to see some factors on which the flammability depends. Let us look at the factors below:.

So, these are the important factors that are required to determine the flammability of a substance. Flammable and inflammable substances mean the same thing. They only differ in one aspect, i. Flammable substances burn at a faster rate, while inflammable substances ignite gradually.

This is the only basic difference between flammable and inflammable substances. Thus, flammable and non-flammable substances are different yet similar to each other. JavaTpoint offers too many high quality services. Mail us on [email protected] , to get more information about given services.

Please mail your requirement at [email protected] Duration: 1 week to 2 week. Next Topic Difference between. Reinforcement Learning. R Programming. The adjectives flammable and inflammable mean exactly the same thing: easily set on fire and capable of burning quickly.

Metaphorically speaking, inflammable also can mean easily angered or excited. Of the two terms, the older word for something capable of burning is inflammable , but early in the 20th century the word flammable was coined as a synonym for inflammable. The adjective nonflammable means not easily set on fire. Despite beginning with "in-," inflammable does mean burnable , and it has since at least , according to the Oxford English Dictionary The prefix "in -" can make a word negative , as in incapable , inflexible , and incompetent , but it also can add emphasis , as in invaluable , inflame , and intense.

The prefix also can mean within , as in incoming , inbreeding , and infighting. The "in-" of inflammable , called an intensive or an intensifier , is of the emphatic type. But people came to believe that the prefix was confusing, which could be dangerous in emergency signage, so inflammable is falling out of use. Flammable , the new kid on the block, didn't appear in print until more than years later. In the s, the National Fire Protection Association began using flammable instead of inflammable , which it thought was confusing because of the negative-sounding beginning of the word.

Insurance companies and fire-safety advocates soon agreed. In , the British Standards Institution announced that, to avoid ambiguity, its policy was to encourage use of the terms flammable and nonflammable instead of inflammable and nonflammable. So which word should a careful writer use? O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman:. But inflammable hasn't disappeared. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage reports that, though both forms still are used, flammable seems to be less common in British English than in American English and inflammable is more common.

In figurative uses, inflammable still serves a purpose. For a time, a substance that couldn't easily catch fire was referred to as being noninflammable.

Nonflammable began to replace that term as flammable become more prominent for the sake of clarity. So nonflammable is the word of choice for careful writers, especially those working in a public safety capacity. Trick question: both flammable and inflammable are correct, as they both mean "capable of being easily ignited and of burning quickly.

In English, we think of in- as a prefix that means "not": inactive means "not active," inconclusive means "not conclusive," inconsiderate means "not considerate. What's the difference between 'flammable' and 'inflammable'? That would make sense—if inflammable had started out as an English word.

We get inflammable from the Latin verb inflammare , which combines flammare "to catch fire" with a Latin prefix in- , which means "to cause to. Inflammable came into English in the early s. Things were fine until , when a scholar translating a Latin text coined the English word flammable from the Latin flammare , and now we had a problem: two words that look like antonyms but are actually synonyms.

There has been confusion between the two words ever since. What do you do? To avoid confusion, choose flammable when you are referring to something that catches fire and burns easily, and use the relatively recent nonflammable when referring to something that doesn't catch fire and burn easily. Our files indicate that use of flammable and nonflammable has increased in print over the last few decades, while use of inflammable has decreased.