Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Amylase
/ˈæmɪleɪs/noun
The enzyme that breaks starch down into sugars, present in saliva and pancreatic juice.
The Greek roots
ἄμυλον
ámylon
fine starch
Literally: “starch enzyme”
Follow a root:ἄμυλον1 word
The story of the word
ἄμυλον means unmilled, from ἀ- plus μύλη, a mill, because the finest starch was obtained by soaking and settling rather than by grinding. The -ase ending is not Greek at all: it was clipped off diastase, the first enzyme ever isolated, and turned into the suffix that now names thousands of them. Chew a plain cracker slowly and the sweetness that arrives after twenty seconds is salivary amylase at work.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- around 1900
Same family
amyloiddiastaseamylopectin
In a sentence
A raised serum amylase pointed straight at the pancreas.
Malted barley supplies the amylase that turns the mash sweet.