Chiral
/ˈkaɪɹəl/ adj
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 that exhibits chirality; as in the left-handed and right-handed versions of a helix, or a molecule with L- and D- stereoisomers. not-comparable, physical
"In the close vicinity of a chiral nanostructure, the circular dichroism of a biomolecule could be greatly enhanced, due to the interaction with the local superchiral fields."
Synonyms
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All antonymsExample
More examples"Chirality or chiral describes a nonsuperimposable mirror image, like left and right hands. Usually in chemistry the term is used to describe a pair of molecules that have the same formulas, but form a pair of structures."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek χείρ (kheír, “hand”) + -al.