Mannoses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Sugars that are simple carbohydrates commonly found in various natural sources ; molecules consisting of a hexose sugar with a specific stereochemistry involved in biological processes ; chemical compounds serving as building blocks for complex carbohydrates and glycoproteins in living organisms
2. Monosaccharides characterized by a six-carbon structure, often participating in cell recognition and signaling ; hexoses used by cells as energy sources or structural components ; organic molecules composing polysaccharides and glycoconjugates involved in metabolism
3. Basic sugar units with six atoms of carbon, important in cellular function and metabolism ; natural hexose sugars integral to the formation of glycans and other biomolecules ; essential carbohydrate components participating in enzymatic reactions and molecular recognition in biochemistry

Etymology: The word is the plural of "mannose," a simple six-carbon sugar, so the story belongs to that base word. Mannose takes its name from manna, the food that the Hebrew Bible describes sustaining the Israelites in the wilderness. The Hebrew term "mān" passed into Ancient Greek as "mắnnă" and into Late Latin as "manna," then into Old English and Middle English, where it kept its biblical sense of miraculous food falling from heaven. The sugar name comes from a chemical lineage that runs through glucose. Glucose was itself named from the Ancient Greek "gleûkos," meaning sweet wine or must, and reached English through French. Chemists then added the "-ose" suffix, used for sugars, to the stem "manna" to coin "mannose." The name thus joins a biblical food to a Greek word for sweetness, though the sugar itself was named for its chemical family rather than for any role in the scriptural story.

Synonyms: mannose sugars, hexoses