The term "degrees Celsius" can be used in a couple of different ways: (a) to express temperature measurements, and (b) to express temperature intervals, that is, differences between temperatures or uncertainties in temperature measurements.
The Celsius scale has been adopted as a standard for regular temperature measurements by most countries of the world and by the entire scientific community.
The first known document reporting temperatures in this modern “forward” Celsius scale is the paper Hortus Upsaliensis dated 16 December 1745 that Linnaeus wrote to his student, Samuel Nauclйr.
The temperature interval of one degree Celsius is the same as that of one kelvin.
The degree Celsius is also a unit increment of temperature for use in indicating a temperature interval (a difference between two temperatures).
The “degree Celsius” is the only SI unit that has an uppercase letter in its full unit name in English.
Older English sources, such as the King James Version of the Bible, refer to livestock in general as "cattle," and cattle as "kine" (which comes from the same English stem as cow).
Celsius (or centigrade) is a temperature scale named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744), who first proposed such a system two years before his death.
Some key temperatures relating the Celsius scale to other temperature scales are shown in the table below.
The term degrees Celsius (symbol: °C) refers to a specific temperature on the Celsius temperature scale.
In 1742, Anders Celsius created a “backwards” version of the modern Celsius temperature scale, using zero to represent the boiling point of water and 100 to represent the melting point of ice.