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Glite Dictionary
pentaerythritol

pentaerythritol

1 9.9
A white solid chemical used to make explosives, resins, and some medicines for chest pain
  • noun
  • /ˌpɛntəˈɛrɪθrɪtɒl/
  • Specialized
: pentaeritritol

Examples

  • Pentaerythritol tetranitrate

    Blog text (31)

  • The explosive in the car was pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which is commonly used for its efficiency in detonations.

  • Object 4B contains a compound of cyclonite and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, utilized in military applications.

  • In the laboratory, various experiments are conducted using pentaerythritol to study its properties and applications.

Surface Forms

pentaerythritol singular
pentaerythritols plural

Morphology

pentaerythritol = erythritol (semi-transparent) = penta + erythritol

Formed by the productive chemical combining form 'penta-' + the established chemical noun 'erythritol', but the term is highly technical and not obvious to average learners.

Etymology

The word pentaerythritol comes from two parts: penta- meaning 'five' and erythritol, a name for a sugar-like -ol that means 'alcohol'. Thinking of it as a 'five' type of alcohol gives an easy picture and helps you remember that pentaerythritol is a special chemical alcohol used as a building block in resins, explosives, and some medicines.