Phosphonate

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Any salt or ester of a phosphonic acid; many of its derivatives have important biological activity.

Verb

1
To react with a phosphonic acid derivative.

Etymology

Etymology 1

From phosphonic acid + -ate (“salt or ester”).

Etymology 2

From phosphonic acid + -ate (verb-forming suffix).

Related phrases

phosphonic acid

More for "phosphonate"

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