Cerebrose

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Possessing a brain or a structure resembling a brain in form or function
2. Having a brain-like organ or brain-like complexity in physical structure
3. Characterized by the presence of a brain or by brain-like anatomical features

Etymology: Cerebrose is a chemistry term built from two parts: "cerebrum," the Latin word for the brain, and the suffix "-ose," which chemists attach to names of sugars. Put together, the name marks a sugar found in brain tissue. The suffix does most of the naming work. "-ose" was adopted into chemical nomenclature so that carbohydrates would share a recognizable ending, as in glucose and fructose, so a substance named "cerebrose" announces itself as a sugar at a glance. The first element tells you where the sugar was found, not what its molecular structure is. Because the word is a coinage built from classical parts rather than a term that passed through everyday speech, its history is essentially the history of the chemical name itself. The word is best understood as a label: a sugar, named after the organ it came from.