Chromophile

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. An organism or cell that takes up dyes and stains readily, making it easily visible under a microscope
2. A cell or microorganism that absorbs coloring substances intensely, allowing it to be distinguished from surrounding tissue
3. An organism or structure that has a strong affinity for dyes, causing it to become deeply colored when stained

Etymology: "Chromophile" is built from two Greek-derived elements: "chromo-", from Greek "khrōma" meaning colour, and "-phile", from Greek "philos" meaning loving or fond of. Put together, the literal sense is something like "colour-loving," and in biology it names a cell that takes up dye readily. The word is a plain technical formation, assembled from these classical building blocks in the same way that scientists coined many terms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when they needed names for newly observed structures. Early microscopists were staining tissue samples to make cell parts visible, and some cells proved far more receptive to certain dyes than others. Those cells needed labels, and "chromophile" gave them one.