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Ardentia
Qualities powers and relations · A Chymical Dictionary
At a Glance
The word. Materials described as combustible by their own nature.
A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 7; facsimile PDF page 335.
Historical Definition
Ardentia are things that, without receiving food, are by their own nature liable to burn, such as amber, turpentine, jet and similar materials.
Meaning
The examples gather several substances under a shared behaviour: their liability to burn. The unusual qualification about receiving no food belongs to the author’s description of their inherent combustibility; the entry does not explain that phrase further. The entry classifies a property rather than identifying one ingredient or one flame.
For a reader, the list also connects the vocabulary of burning with the dictionary’s accounts of resinous or pitch-like substances. Compare Æthna, where subterranean fire is associated with resin and bitumen. That connection helps locate Ardentia within the material picture without making all combustible substances the same.
Places to Read
Æthna. An underground fire explained through sulphur, resin and bitumen.
Bitumen. A pitch-like earthly material described through texture and origin.
Botin. A historical name for turpentine.
Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 7; facsimile PDF page 335 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary (1650), s.v. Ardentia ; compare Æthna, Bitumen, Botin