Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Monomer
/ˈmɒnəmər/noun
A small molecule that can bond with copies of itself to build a polymer.
The Greek roots
μόνος
mónos
single, alone
μέρος
méros
part, share
Literally: “single part”
The story of the word
The word only makes sense backwards. Polymer came first, in Berzelius's chemistry of the 1830s, and monomer was cut from it later to name the single unit the chain is made of. Glucose is a monomer, starch the polymer; styrene is a monomer, and the cup in your hand is the polymer.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
polymermonopolymonkoligomer
In a sentence
Heat the monomer with an initiator and the chain builds itself.