Diisopropylphenol

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A chemical compound used as an intravenous anesthetic to induce and maintain sedation during surgery and medical procedures
2. A short-acting intravenous drug that renders patients unconscious for medical procedures and is widely used in anesthesia
3. The sedative agent commonly given by injection to produce temporary loss of consciousness during operations and other clinical care

Etymology: Diisopropylphenol is a chemical name built almost entirely from systematic parts, and its history is the story of how chemists learned to name molecules by their structure. "Di-" means two, "iso-" marks a branched carbon chain, and "propyl" names a three-carbon group. "Phenol" is the older name for the benzene-ring compound carbolic acid, a word coined from "benzene" plus the "-ol" ending that marks an alcohol-type group. Put together, the name tells a chemist exactly what to build: a phenol ring carrying two branched propyl groups. The compound's best-known role is medical. Its most familiar form, propofol, is a widely used intravenous anaesthetic, and the name reflects that same structure with the two isopropyl groups attached to the ring. Because the name is systematic rather than traditional, anyone who knows the naming rules can read it and draw the molecule without seeing a picture.

Synonyms: propofol