Enchyme

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The formless, fluid ground substance from which the cells and tissues of a living organism are formed
2. A soft, unstructured fluid matter in living bodies that gives rise to the organized tissues and cells of an organism
3. The undifferentiated, watery material of an organism out of which its tissues and organs are shaped during development

Etymology: "Enchyme" was coined in the 1840s by the German physiologist Theodor Schwann, who needed a name for the shapeless material he believed lay beneath the organised forms of living tissue. He built it from the Greek "egkhuma," meaning something poured in, from "egkhein," to pour in, which combines "en" (in) with "khein" (to pour). The image was of a liquid being poured into a mould, with the solid structures forming from it. The term was part of Schwann's larger project. In 1839 he had argued that all animal tissues are made of cells, and he believed cells arose from this fluid background in a process he called free cell formation. The idea was later shown to be largely mistaken: cells arise by division of existing cells, not by crystallising out of a formless fluid. So the word names a concept that the science itself abandoned, though its Greek sense of pouring in still describes the older theory exactly.