Formyl

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A chemical group derived from formic acid, represented as -CHO, which includes a carbonyl and a hydrogen atom
2. A functional group in organic chemistry, consisting of a carbon atom double-bonded to oxygen and single-bonded to a hydrogen
3. An aldehyde group that serves as a key component in various organic compounds and chemical reactions

Etymology: Formyl is the name of the CHO group, a carbon atom bonded to a hydrogen and a double-bonded oxygen, that sits at the head of aldehydes. The name starts with formic acid, which was first isolated from ants. Early chemists distilled the acid from red wood ants, and the name took its root from the Latin "formica", meaning "ant". The suffix "-yl" was added by chemists to name radicals, the groups of atoms that stay together through a reaction. Chemists formed a series of such names on the same pattern, so a group drawn from formic acid became "formyl". The name therefore records a biological source, an insect, rather than any property of the group itself.

Synonyms: aldehyde group, CHO group, formyl group, aldehyde functional group, carbonyl group