Acryl

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A synthetic plastic resin or the paint made from it, valued for being durable and fast-drying
2. A man-made polymer material, or the pigment medium based on it, used in paints, fibres and plastics
3. Refers to a synthetic substance derived from acrylic acid, commonly used as a paint binder or plastic

Etymology: Acryl comes from a chain of coinages built on the Greek word for "sharp," and its pungent parent was named for its smell. The starting point is acrolein, a compound whose name joins the Latin "acer," meaning sharp or bitter, with the Latin "oleum," meaning oil. Acrolein is the irritating substance that gives burnt fat and overheated oil their stinging odour, so the name records a smell rather than a chemical recipe. Chemists then took the "-yl" ending, a suffix used to name chemical radicals, and attached it to acrolein's name to label the group of atoms that the parent compound contributes to larger molecules. That gave "acryl," the base from which the adjective acrylic and the family of acrylic acids, resins and fibres were later named. The stem therefore carries a trace of the sharp, acrid smell of burnt oil.