Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Terpene
/ˈtɜːrpiːn/noun
Any of a very large class of aromatic hydrocarbons built from isoprene units, produced above all by conifers.
The Greek roots
τερέβινθος
terébinthos
terebinth tree
Literally: “from the terebinth”
Follow a root:τερέβινθος3 words
The story of the word
The name is a clipping of German Terpentin, turpentine, which is where the first ones were distilled, so a Mediterranean tree stands three removes behind a modern chemical class. What a pine wood, a lemon peel or a hop flower smells of is terpenes, and the described count runs past thirty thousand. Chemists later found the whole class is assembled from one five-carbon block, which is why the carbon counts arrive in multiples of ten.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → German coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
turpentineterebinth
In a sentence
Most of what people call the smell of rain in a forest is terpenes coming off warm needles.