What does calory mean?
"Calory" is a historical variant spelling of the word now universally written as "calorie." A calorie is a unit of energy — originally defined in nineteenth-century heat studies as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius at standard atmospheric pressure. In nutrition, the term usually refers to the kilocalorie (the "large Calorie"), the figure printed on food labels to express how much energy a food provides. The spelling "calory" surfaces chiefly in older scientific texts and period publications, before conventions standardized; today it carries no distinct meaning and would generally be regarded as a misspelling. Readers encountering "calory" should understand it simply as an earlier way of writing the same unit of measurement that governs dietary energy discussion worldwide.
noun"Calory" is an obsolete or nonstandard variant spelling of "calorie," the unit of energy used in nutrition and thermodynamics, equal to the heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.
- An obsolete variant spelling of calorie: the unit of energy equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius, commonly used to express the energy content of food.
"The old textbook listed each food's energy value in calories per serving."
"Early nutrition manuals sometimes printed the word as calory rather than the modern calorie."
"A single gram of fat supplies roughly nine calory units of energy by the older spelling."
Like the modern spelling, the plural is formed regularly with -s.
"The chart compared the calories in bread, rice, and butter."
Before the spelling settled on 'calorie,' writers sometimes used 'calory' — a small orthographic fossil from the early days of measuring the heat of food.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of calory
The word derives, via the French "calorie" (coined in the nineteenth century from Latin "calor," meaning heat), from the Latin root "calere," to be warm. English adopted the term alongside French scientific usage during the development of thermodynamics, and variant spellings such as "calory" appeared in some early English texts before "calorie" became fixed as the standard form. Cognates sharing the same Latin root include "calorimeter" and the discredited fluid theory term "caloric."
Related word forms
How calory is actually used
Avoid this spelling in modern writing; use "calorie" instead. "Calory" appears only in historical or typographical contexts and may read as an error to contemporary readers.
Easily confused with calory
Calory is simply a dated, now-superseded spelling of the same word; the standard modern spelling is calorie.