Amphiphilic

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Being a detergent: having both hydrophilic and hydrophobic (or lipophilic) groups.

    "Sequential living polymerizations of hydrophilic and hydrophobic vinyl ethers from these trifunctional initiators give amphiphilic triarmed block copolymers where the hydrophilic segments may be placed either inner or outer layer of the three arms."

  2. 2
    Having one surface consisting of hydrophilic amino acids and the opposite surface consisting of hydrophobic (or lipophilic) ones.

Synonyms

All synonyms
amphipathicamphipathic

Example

More examples

"Sequential living polymerizations of hydrophilic and hydrophobic vinyl ethers from these trifunctional initiators give amphiphilic triarmed block copolymers where the hydrophilic segments may be placed either inner or outer layer of the three arms."

Etymology

From amphi- + -philic.

Related phrases

amino acids

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