Mannitol

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A sugar alcohol that acts as an osmotic diuretic to decrease intracranial pressure while aiding kidney function and serving as a sweetener and culture medium in labs
2. A type of sugar alcohol utilized to reduce swelling in the brain and kidneys while also serving as a sweetening agent and in laboratory growth media
3. An organic compound classified as a sugar alcohol that helps lower fluid pressure in tissues, assists kidney performance, and is applied as a sweetener and culture substrate

Etymology: Mannitol takes its name from manna, the sticky substance that the Bible describes as sustaining the Israelites in the desert. Chemists first isolated a sweet crystalline substance from manna in the nineteenth century, and they called it "mannite," coining the name by adding the chemical suffix "-ite" to manna. That earlier name survives in the modern word, which was built by adding "-ol," the ending chemists use for compounds containing alcohol groups, to mannite. The result is a word that records a historical substance in its first half and a chemical structure in its second. Mannitol is a sugar alcohol, meaning it is chemically related to sugars but has the alcohol-type structure that makes it behave differently in the body. Its name also reflects how it is often described by its parts: it is closely related to mannose, a sugar, and the "-itol" ending matches the pattern used for sugar alcohols.