Lyophobe

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A material or colloid that repels its solvent and fails to become solvated when placed in a liquid medium
2. Any substance that lacks affinity for the liquid in which it is dispersed, so it does not mix or dissolve readily
3. A chemical system whose particles resist interaction with the surrounding solvent and therefore remain separate from it

Etymology: "Lyophobe" is a technical coinage built from two Greek-derived elements. The first, "lyo-", comes from the Greek "lyein," meaning "to loosen" or "to dissolve," and it appears in chemistry terms about solvents and dispersions. The second, "-phobe," is the familiar Greek "phobos," meaning "fear" or "dislike," which here yields the sense of something that shrinks away from a particular substance. The word is recorded in the United States around 1900, and it may have been modelled on French "lyophobe," an adjective in the same chemical vocabulary. Its meaning is specialised: a lyophobe is a substance that does not readily mix or dissolve in a given liquid, a term used within colloid chemistry. Because it was coined from classical parts rather than inherited from ancient usage, it is a modern scientific formation and not a word the Greeks themselves would have recognised.