Amylon

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A carbohydrate that is a primary component of starch, it serves as an energy source in many organisms
2. A polysaccharide found in plant tissues, it acts as an energy reserve stored for later use
3. A complex carbohydrate that provides energy storage in various plants, contributing to their structural integrity

Etymology: The name of this plant starch comes from a Greek word meaning "not ground," and the reason is a little startling. In ancient Greek, "ámulon" was built from "a-," a negating prefix, and "mýlē," meaning "mill." Together they described bread or grain-based starch that had been prepared without milling, the kind of fine, unground flour that was never reduced to powder by a grinding stone. The Romans borrowed the term as "amylum," and it kept that sense of something pure and smooth, a fine starch used in cookery and cloth-making. Over time the term narrowed to refer to starch itself, so when chemists later needed a name for the plant polysaccharide that stores energy, they took the old Latin word and applied it to that compound. The modern sense owes nothing to milling at all; it descends from a Greek name for a particular kind of unground flour.