Acetyl

//ˈæsətɪl// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The univalent radical CH₃CO- derived from acetic acid.
  2. 2
    the organic group of acetic acid (CH3CO-) wordnet

Example

More examples

"In the Seventeen-Hundreds, people used willow bark to reduce a sick person's high body temperature. In Eighteen-Sixty, researchers at the Bayer Company in Germany copied the salicylic acid found in willow bark. They created acetyl salicylic acid. They called it aspirin, for the spirea plant which also contains the natural chemical. Aspirin first was made into its present pill form about one-hundred years ago."

Etymology

From Latin acētum (“vinegar”) + Ancient Greek ὕλη (húlē, “substance”).

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.