aminoalkanoic acid
- noun
- /əˌmiːnoʊˈælkəˌnoʊɪk ˈæsɪd/
- Specialized
:
ácido aminoalcanoico
- The structure of an aminoalkanoic acid includes both an amino and a carboxylic acid group.
Examples
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Lysine is a type of aminoalkanoic acid.
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Many proteins are made up of aminoalkanoic acids.
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Glycine, the simplest aminoalkanoic acid, is found in most proteins.
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Scientists synthesized a new aminoalkanoic acid to study its potential for drug development.
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Glycine, the simplest aminoalkanoic acid, is found in most proteins.
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Scientists synthesized a new aminoalkanoic acid to study its potential for drug development.
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The structure of an aminoalkanoic acid includes both an amino and a carboxylic acid group.
Synonyms
32
3.4
A small chemical that joins with others to make proteins
Surface Forms
Morphology
aminoalkanoic + acid
The element 'acid' is clear and the morpheme 'amino' signals an amino group, so a learner who knows these roots might infer this refers to an acid containing an amino component. However, 'aminoalkanoic' is a technical, concatenated chemical term (alkanoic referring to alkane-derived carboxylic acids) that is not familiar in everyday English and requires domain knowledge to interpret precisely, so the meaning is only partially predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Aminoalkanoic acid literally joins amino and alkanoic acid; imagine a small cabin (amino) attached to a long road (alkanoic acid) with a flag at the road end for the 'acid' part. That's why the word means a compound that has both an 'amino' part and an 'acid' part and so is a kind of amino acid.