Microelement

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tiny but vital nutrient necessary for various biological functions and present in very small amounts in living organisms
2. An essential trace substance crucial for biochemical reactions and overall health that organisms require in minuscule quantities
3. A minute nutrient that is essential for the functioning of biological systems and must be obtained in extremely small amounts for optimal health

Etymology: "Microelement" is a plain compound: "micro-", from Greek "mikros" meaning "small", joined to "element". The "element" half comes from Latin "elementum", which originally meant a basic component or a letter of the alphabet, and it entered English through Old French with the sense of a fundamental substance. The prefix does the work here. Together they name a substance an organism needs only in tiny amounts, such as boron, zinc or manganese, as opposed to the macronutrients like nitrogen or potassium that plants and animals require in larger quantities. The word is a modern technical coinage. It belongs to the study of plant and animal nutrition, where scientists needed a label that separated trace-level nutrients from bulk ones. Its meaning rests on a comparison of quantity rather than on any inherent property of the substances themselves, so the same element can be a microelement for one organism and a macronutrient for another.

Synonyms: trace element, micronutrient