Hydrogen's name comes from the Ancient Greek words ὕδωρ (hýdōr), meaning "water", and γένος (génos), meaning "creation" or "kind". Hydrogen was first isolated by the English chemist Henry Cavendish in 1766, and he gave it the name "inflammable air". In 1783, the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier coined the name "hydrogen", which literally means "water-creator" or "water-former". This name was chosen because hydrogen is a component of water, and it is also the lightest and most abundant element in the universe.