Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Melanin
/ˈmɛlənɪn/noun
The pigment that colours skin, hair and eyes and absorbs ultraviolet light.
The Greek roots
μέλας
mélas
black, dark
Literally: “black substance”
Follow a root:μέλας5 words
The story of the word
Chemists named the pigment in the 19th century from the ordinary Greek word for black. One substance does several jobs with it: colouring hair and iris, darkening skin under sunlight, and soaking up ultraviolet before it reaches DNA. μέλας also sits inside melancholy, the black bile that ancient medicine blamed for depression, and Melanesia, the black islands.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
melancholymelanomaMelanesiamelanism
In a sentence
Freckles are melanin gathered in patches rather than spread evenly.