Carothers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name of Scottish origin, best known through Wallace Carothers, the American chemist who developed nylon
2. A surname borne by people such as Wallace Carothers, the American chemist credited with inventing nylon
3. A family name, famous mainly because of the American chemist Wallace Carothers and his invention of nylon

Etymology: Carothers is a surname, a variant spelling of Carruthers, which comes from a Scottish place name in Dumfriesshire. Families took surnames from their lands, so the name records a place long before it belonged to any particular person. The name is best known through Wallace Carothers, the American chemist at DuPont who led the research that produced nylon, the first fully synthetic fibre. His team worked on long chain molecules called polymers, and their discovery turned a laboratory curiosity into a material that replaced silk in stockings and later filled countless other uses. The name now appears in histories of chemistry as the man behind that breakthrough.