Azepines

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Organic compounds whose molecules contain a seven-membered ring built from six carbon atoms and one nitrogen atom, forming a family of chemical structures
2. Heterocyclic chemicals featuring a closed ring of seven atoms, one of which is nitrogen, used as building blocks in pharmaceutical and dye chemistry
3. Nitrogen-containing cyclic compounds with a seven-membered ring structure, a class of molecules studied in organic chemistry and drug design

Etymology: Azepines are a family of chemical compounds, and their name is a kind of chemical shorthand assembled from pieces of other words. The "aze" part comes from "az-", a prefix meaning "nitrogen-substituted", which traces back to the French "azote", the name chemists gave to nitrogen. The "-epine" ending comes from a French prefix "hepta-", meaning "seven", combined with the suffix "-ine", which chemists use for organic compounds of this kind. Put together, the name describes a ring of seven atoms in which one is nitrogen. The "seven" in the name is the number of atoms in the ring, so the word is a precise description of the molecule's structure rather than a term inherited from older language.