Ardentia

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.