What does "tyrosine" mean?

A nonessential amino acid 2-amino-3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid found in most animal proteins, especially casein

What is a synonym for "tyrosine"?

Common synonyms include: amino acid, hydroxyphenylalanine, tyr, tyr.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A nonessential amino acid 2-amino-3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid found in most animal proteins, especially casein countable, uncountable
2
an amino acid found in most proteins; a precursor of several hormones wordnet

"Tyrosine is similar in structure to phenylalanine, with the important distinction that the latter contains a hydroxyl group in its side chain."

From Ancient Greek τῡρός (tūrós, “cheese”) + -ine (since first discovered in cheese); surface analysis is approximately tyro- + -ine.

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