Alexine

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of valuable cloth or fabric often used historically for fine garments
2. A luxurious textile material prized for its quality and appearance in former centuries
3. An expensive fabric known for its richness and use in high-status clothing

Etymology: The word is a deliberate scientific coinage, and it has nothing to do with fabric. In 1891, the German bacteriologist Hans Buchner used "Alexine" in a medical journal to name a class of protective proteins, the substances in blood serum that helped the body fight off infection. He chose the name because he wanted something new, not borrowed from a known protein, and he built it from the ancient Greek verb "aléxein," meaning "to ward off" or "to defend." In his own gloss, the term meant "protective stuff." The costly historical fabric sense is an unrelated, older English word, and the two are not connected in origin. The scientific term was the one that spread, and it was later spelled "alexin." Its neighbouring form "alexine" survives mainly as the obsolete spelling of that same medical term, so the fabric meaning is a separate homonym that a dictionary has recorded without a traceable link to Buchner's coinage.