From Latin 'ignīre' (to set on fire) — originally alchemical, adopted for engines in the 1880s and rocket launches in the space age.
The action of setting something on fire or beginning to burn; the mechanism for starting an engine by igniting the fuel mixture.
From Medieval Latin 'ignītiōnem' (nominative 'ignītiō'), a noun of action from Latin 'ignīre' (to set on fire), from 'ignis' (fire). The word entered English as an alchemical and natural-philosophical term for the process of setting something ablaze. Its modern mechanical sense — the system that starts an internal combustion engine — dates from the 1880s, when the newly invented petrol engine needed vocabulary to describe its spark-driven firing system. Key
The phrase 'ignition sequence' entered popular culture through NASA's Apollo program. The countdown to launch culminated in 'ignition' — the moment the Saturn V rocket's five F-1 engines were set ablaze by a device that was, essentially, a very large spark plug. The Latin word for fire thus became the word that put humans on the Moon
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