Hydrogen cyanide was first isolated from a blue pigment (Prussian blue) which had been known since 1706, but whose structure was unknown. It is now known to be a coordination polymer with a complex structure and an empirical formula of hydrated ferric ferrocyanide. In 1752, the French chemist Pierre Macquer made the important step of showing that Prussian blue could be converted to an iron oxide plus a volatile component and that these could be used to reconstitute it. The new component was what is now known as hydrogen cyanide. Following Macquers lead, it was first prepared from Prussian blue by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1782, and was eventually given the German name Blausäure (lit. "Blue acid") because of its acidic nature in water and its derivation from Prussian blue. In English, it became known popularly as prussic acid.'
In 1787, the French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet showed that prussic acid did not contain oxygen, an important contribution to acid theory, which had hitherto postulated that acids must contain oxygen (hence the name of oxygen itself, which is derived from Greek elements that mean "acid-former" and are likewise calqued into German as Sauerstoff). In 1811, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac prepared pure, liquified hydrogen cyanide. In 1815, Gay-Lussac deduced Prussic acids chemical formula. The radical cyanide' in hydrogen cyanide was given its name from cyan, not only an English word for a shade of blue but the Greek word for blue (), again owing to its derivation from Prussian blue.