Halobenzenes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Aromatic chemical compounds in which one or more hydrogen atoms of a benzene ring have been replaced by halogen atoms such as chlorine or bromine
2. Derivatives of benzene formed by substituting halogens like fluorine, chlorine, bromine or iodine for hydrogen on the six-carbon ring
3. Organic substances built on a benzene ring that carry halogen atoms in place of some of its hydrogen atoms, used widely in chemical synthesis

Etymology: "Halobenzenes" is the plural of "halobenzene," a chemical term for benzene in which one or more hydrogen atoms have been replaced by halogen atoms such as chlorine, bromine or fluorine. The word is built from two parts: "halo-," from the Greek "hals" meaning salt (the same root behind "halogen," literally "salt-former"), and "benzene," the name of the aromatic hydrocarbon itself. The "benz-" in benzene traces back to gum benzoin, a resin whose name was adapted into the chemical vocabulary in the early 19th century, when chemists isolated the compound from it. The "-ene" ending is the standard chemical suffix for an unsaturated hydrocarbon, so the whole name reads as a combination of a salt-related prefix and a benzene-related base. Because the prefix simply names the halogen family, the same pattern produces a series of closely related compound names, such as "chlorobenzene" and "bromobenzene," with "halobenzene" serving as the general term.