Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Oligomer
/əˈlɪɡəmər/noun
A molecule made of a small, countable number of repeating units, sitting between a monomer and a polymer.
The Greek roots
ὀλίγος
olígos
few, small
μέρος
méros
part, share
Literally: “few parts”
The story of the word
Chemistry needed a middle term once it became clear that short chains behave differently from long ones, and the same ὀλίγος that names rule by the few supplied it. There is no fixed boundary: a few units up to a few dozen, after which convention calls it a polymer. Short synthetic DNA strands are oligonucleotides, oligos in the lab, ordered by the tube.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
oligarchypolymermonomeroligopoly
In a sentence
The reaction stalled at the oligomer stage and never built anything longer.