Lipoid

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Resembling fat or having a composition similar to fatty tissue in appearance or chemical nature
2. Having the characteristics or properties of lipids, or appearing similar to fat in structure or behavior
3. Relating to or composed of substances that resemble fat, such as oils, waxes, or other lipid compounds

Etymology: "Lipoid" is a plain technical coinage: "lip-" (from Greek "lipos", meaning fat or grease) combined with the suffix "-oid", from Greek "eidos", meaning form or resemblance, so the whole thing means "fat-like." It is the kind of word chemists and physiologists built from Greek parts to name a substance that resembles fat without being fat. The main use of the word is to describe a class of fat-like compounds found in living cells, such as phospholipids and waxes, which share the greasy, water-repelling character of true fats. The word's construction makes its meaning transparent: a reader who knows the Greek elements can work out the sense without a dictionary.

Synonyms: lipidic, fatty