Xanthein

//ˈzænθiːn// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The water-soluble part of the yellow carotenoid pigment present in the cell sap of some plants. countable, uncountable

Etymology

Borrowed from French xantheine, apparently an arbitrary respelling to distinguish it from the similarly spelled xanthine. Ultimately from Ancient Greek; see xanthine. By surface analysis, xanth- + -ein.

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