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Glite Dictionary
mass spec

mass spec

4 3.8
A lab test that finds which chemicals are in a sample
  • noun
  • /mæs spɛk/
  • Jargon
translation icon : espectrometría de masas
  • As it floated out of sight, she entered the results of the mass spec analysis into Leakey's computer.
  • mass spec analysis

You then have a picture of sequencing by mass spec.

Examples

  • After the lab ran the sample through the mass spec, they discovered it contained multiple compounds.

  • And the reason that this is significant is we figured out how to measure that with a mass spec in the lab.

  • Rather than just trying to show that we can be clever with a mass spec, we thought maybe we could answer some really key questions.

  • And we used a mass quantitative mass spec approach to identify these proteins and the accurate mass and time tag approach.

  • Mass spec is the basic principle of mass spec is you have an ion that enters the magnetic field and it gets deflected.

  • If you now inject that into the HPLC into the mass spec, every peak integrated intensity should be equal because they're all equimolar.

  • The mass spec analysis revealed the sample's molecular structure.

  • Researchers often use a mass spec to determine the composition of unknown substances.

Surface Forms

mass spec singular
mass specs plural

Morphology

mass + spec

This is an informal, domain-specific clipping where 'spec' stands for 'spectrometry' or 'spectrometer' rather than a full lexical item; a B1 learner who knows only the common noun 'mass' and not the clipped technical abbreviation will not be able to derive the meaning. The phrase functions as scientific jargon/abbreviation and requires specialized knowledge of the field, so its meaning is not compositionally predictable from the surface parts.

Etymology

Mass spec comes from the full name 'mass spectrometry'. The word mass means weight and spec comes from a word meaning to look or measure, so the name suggests checking the weights of pieces. That's why mass spec now means the machine or method scientists use to find what molecules are in a sample.