Hydramine

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A substance that acts as an antihistamine to alleviate allergic symptoms by blocking histamine receptors
2. An agent used to reduce the effects of allergies and hay fever by preventing histamine from binding to its receptors
3. A medication commonly utilized to mitigate allergic reactions by inhibiting the action of histamine in the body

Etymology: Hydramine is a chemical coinage, not an ancient word, and its parts are easy to trace. The first part comes from "hydr(oxy)", a shortened form of "hydroxy", which itself joins the Ancient Greek "hudro-", from "hudor", meaning water, with "oxy", the English combining form for oxygen. The second part, "-amine", is a suffix chemists use for compounds containing nitrogen in the form of amines, the family of molecules derived from ammonia. That ammonia link runs back a long way. The ammonia name comes from "Ammon", the Greek form of the Egyptian god Amun, because salts of ammonia were collected near his temple in Libya. Latin "ammoniacus" passed the name into European chemistry, and the English word "ammonia" followed. "Amine" was formed from it in the nineteenth century, so the whole chain of parts is modern even though its roots are ancient. Hydramine itself is a later name built from those pieces, describing a compound with both a hydroxyl-type group and an amine group, and it is used as an antihistamine.