Arachidic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Of, pertaining to, or obtained from peanuts or their oil
2. Derived from or associated with groundnuts and their chemical constituents
3. Relating to compounds found in peanut oil or peanut-based products

Etymology: Arachidic is a chemistry term, and its name points to a plant rather than a person. The base is "arachis," the Latin name for the peanut, which itself came from a Greek word for a leguminous plant. The adjective is built on that root with the "-ic" ending common in chemical vocabulary, so it describes compounds connected with peanuts. The most useful fact for understanding the word is its specific chemical link. Arachidic acid, a saturated fatty acid with twenty carbon atoms, was named for its presence in peanut oil, where it occurs in notable amounts. Chemists chose the botanical name rather than a descriptive coinage, so the word preserves the plant's Latin name inside a technical label.