Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Lecithin
/ˈlɛsɪθɪn/noun
A group of fatty phospholipids used as an emulsifier in food and found in cell membranes.
The Greek roots
λέκιθος
lékithos
egg yolk
Literally: “yolk substance”
Follow a root:λέκιθος1 word
The story of the word
Théodore Gobley spent years pulling the substance out of egg yolks and in 1850 named it after them, so the word means roughly yolk-stuff. Most lecithin on an ingredients list now comes from soybeans, a plant the Greeks never saw, but the name still points back to the egg. Its job in a chocolate bar is the same job it does in a yolk: keeping fat and water from separating.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → French → English
- First recorded
- 1850s
In a sentence
Soy lecithin is why the chocolate stays smooth instead of seizing.
A yolk carries enough lecithin to hold a cup of oil in suspension.