Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Propylene
/ˈproʊpɪliːn/noun
A colourless gaseous hydrocarbon, C3H6, used as the feedstock for polypropylene and much of the plastics industry.
The Greek roots
πρῶτος
prôtos
first
πίων
píōn
fat
ὕλη
hū́lē
matter, stuff
Literally: “first-fat stuff”
The story of the word
The prop- comes from propionic acid, named in 1847 as the first of the true fatty acids: prōtos plus piōn, first plus fat. The -yl is the chemists' suffix from hulē, matter, and -ene marks a double bond. So a barrel of the most ordinary industrial gas carries a small Greek argument about where fattiness begins.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
propaneproteinprototypepolymer
In a sentence
The cracker runs on ethane but yields propylene as a co-product.
Propylene glycol turns up in everything from vape liquid to ice cream.