Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Hydrolysis
/haɪˈdrɒlɪsɪs/noun
A reaction in which water splits a chemical bond.
The Greek roots
ὕδωρ
hýdōr
water
λύσις
lýsis
loosening, breaking up
Literally: “loosening by water”
The story of the word
Water goes into the bond and breaks it apart, which is what digestion does to starch on the way to sugars and what turns fat into soap in a pot of lye. Chemists built the word in the nineteenth century on the pattern already set by analysis and electrolysis. The ὕδωρ in it also gives hydrant, hydra and hydraulic, that last one from the water organ, ὕδωρ plus αὐλός, a pipe.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
electrolysishydranthydraulicanalysis
In a sentence
Enzymes speed the hydrolysis of the peptide bond by many orders of magnitude.