Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Glucose
/ˈɡluːkoʊs/noun
The simple sugar that circulates in blood and fuels most cells.
The Greek roots
γλεῦκος
gleûkos
sweet new wine
Literally: “sweet new wine”
Follow a root:γλεῦκος1 word
The story of the word
Jean-Baptiste Dumas named it in 1838 from gleûkos, the sweet unfermented juice pressed from grapes. Its cousin glykýs, sweet, produced glycerine, glycogen and liquorice, which reached English as a squashed form of glykýrrhiza, sweet root. Chemists later fixed the ending -ose for every sugar, so this one word quietly set the pattern for lactose, fructose and sucrose.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1840s
Same family
glycogenglycerinehypoglycaemialiquorice
In a sentence
Her glucose was still high two hours after the meal.
Plants make glucose out of air, water and light, which never stops being remarkable.