Amylene

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of hydrocarbon that is typically a liquid at room temperature, often derived from the distillation of petroleum or produced synthetically
2. An organic compound characterized by its alkyl structure, usually consisting of branched or unbranched chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen
3. A constituent found in various chemical reactions and processes, particularly in the manufacture of chemicals and as an industrial solvent

Etymology: Amylene gets its name from starch. The Ancient Greek "ámylon" meant "fine flour" or "unground meal," built from the privative prefix "a-" ("not") and "mýlē" ("mill"), so it literally described grain that had never been ground. The Latin borrowing "amylum" kept that sense for starch, the white powder made from grain, and chemists took "amyl" from it to name a five-carbon group of atoms. Some of the group's compounds were first made from fusel oil, the oily by-product of fermentation. The "-ene" ending is the standard chemical marker for a compound containing a carbon-carbon double bond, the pattern seen in "ethylene" and "propylene." Amylene is therefore the amyl-based member of that family, a hydrocarbon in which two carbons share a double bond.