Lyophilise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Preserves a material by freezing it and then removing the water through vacuum sublimation so it stays stable for long periods
2. Dries a food, drug or biological sample by freezing it and letting the ice turn straight into vapour under low pressure
3. Subjects something to freeze-drying, chilling it solid and extracting its moisture under reduced pressure to keep its structure intact

Etymology: Lyophilise is a technical coinage, built in the late nineteenth century from Greek parts that do not quite mean what their English descendants suggest. The first element, "lyo-", comes from Greek "lúein", which means "to loosen" or "to dissolve," while "-phile" comes from "phílos," "beloved." The pairing looks odd, since "-phile" usually means "loving," but in scientific compounds it came to mean "absorbing" or "having an affinity for," as in "hydrophilic," literally "water-loving" but used for substances that soak up water. The word first appears around 1894 in the United States, and the verb gives its name to the process of lyophilization. It describes freeze-drying: a material is frozen, then the water is removed by sublimation under vacuum, leaving a dry product that can be stored for long periods and later rehydrated. The verb is the same construction used across several European languages, which suggests a shared scientific vocabulary rather than a single borrowing.

Synonyms: freeze-dry