Arginine

//ˈɑɹɡɪniːn// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An amino acid found in animal foods that plays an important role in several physiological processes. countable, uncountable

    "Since arginine is a normal component and plays an important role in the glucose transport mechanism, arginates can easily serve as acceptors for glucose."

  2. 2
    a bitter tasting amino acid found in proteins and necessary for nutrition; its absence from the diet leads to a reduced production of spermatozoa wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
amino acidargarg

Example

More examples

"Since arginine is a normal component and plays an important role in the glucose transport mechanism, arginates can easily serve as acceptors for glucose."

Etymology

From German Arginin, from Ancient Greek ἄργυρος (árguros, “silver”) and ἀργινόεις (arginóeis, “silvery, brightly shining”) in reference to arginine nitrate crystals' silver-white appearance when first refined from lupin seedlings by Ernst Schulze and Ernst Steiger in 1886.

Related phrases

insulin glargineamino acid

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