Alkanes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. a series of hydrocarbons that consist entirely of single-bonded carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms filling the remaining bonds
2. a set of organic substances known for having only single bonds between carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms ensuring full valence saturation
3. a class of organic compounds characterized by chains of carbon atoms connected solely by single bonds, with hydrogen atoms completing the valence requirements

Etymology: Alkanes are the plural of "alkane", and the name is a German creation built from the chemistry of alcohol. Chemists first developed the stem "alkyl" in Germany, and "alkane" was formed from it by adding the suffix "-ane" to name the simplest hydrocarbons, in which carbon atoms are joined only by single bonds. The "alk-" element traces back through Medieval Latin "alcohol" to Arabic "kuḥl", a fine powder used as eye cosmetic, and before that to Akkadian and Aramaic words with the same sense of powdered antimony or kohl. The fuller story is one of borrowing. The Arabic term passed into Medieval Latin as "alcohol", a word first used for a fine powder before it came to mean a distilled spirit. German chemists later took the "alk-" fragment from that chain and combined it with "-yl", producing "alkyl" for a group of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Adding "-ane" to that stem gave a family name for saturated hydrocarbons, and English adopted it from German.