Diazin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A class of six-membered aromatic organic compounds in which two of the ring atoms are nitrogen, used as a base for many dyes and drugs
2. Any one of a family of heterocyclic chemical rings that contain two nitrogen atoms within a six-atom structure
3. A six-membered heterocyclic compound built around a ring with two nitrogen atoms, found in pyrimidines and related chemicals

Etymology: The word "diazin" is an archaic form of "diazine," a term from chemistry for a class of six-membered ring compounds containing two nitrogen atoms. Its parts are plain: "di-" meaning "two," from the Greek prefix "dis" (in its form "di-"), joined to "azote," the old name for nitrogen, and the suffix "-ine," which chemists attached to names of nitrogen-containing compounds. "Azote" is the more surprising piece. It was coined in the late 1780s by French chemists, including Antoine Lavoisier, who built the name from the Greek privative prefix "a-" (meaning "not") and "zōē" (meaning "life"), because nitrogen does not support life or combustion. The French word "azote" then passed into English, where it was used for nitrogen until the name "nitrogen" largely displaced it in the nineteenth century. Because "azote" was still the standard chemical name when diazine compounds were named, the term carried the older vocabulary with it, and "diazin" preserves that earlier spelling. The word is a technical coinage, so its history is a matter of chemists naming a new compound from the names they already had.