Formyle

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The monovalent chemical group CHO, consisting of a carbon atom bonded to hydrogen and joined by a double bond to oxygen, found in aldehydes
2. A univalent radical with the formula CHO, made of one carbon, one hydrogen and one oxygen atom, that forms part of aldehyde molecules
3. The chemical grouping of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen written CHO, which serves as the characteristic functional unit of aldehydes in organic chemistry

Etymology: Formyl is named after ants. Formic acid, the substance it comes from, was first obtained by distilling ants, and its name comes from Latin "formica," meaning "ant." Early chemists extracted the acid this way, and the name stuck to the family of compounds derived from it. The "-yl" ending is a later invention. In the 1830s, Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler proposed that groups of atoms could pass unchanged from one compound to another, like elements. They needed names for these groups and borrowed the Greek "hyle," meaning "wood" or "matter," which gave German chemists the suffix "-yl." Formyl is the group HCO, the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen core of formic acid, so it is named by combining the ant-derived stem with that suffix.