Microsynthesize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Making a chemical compound on a tiny scale, using only minute amounts of starting materials in a laboratory setting
2. Creating a substance through a synthesis process carried out in very small quantities, often for analysis or testing
3. Carrying out a chemical synthesis at a microscale so that only trace amounts of the final product are formed

Etymology: "Micro-" comes from the Greek "mikros", meaning small, and it has been attached to countless modern scientific terms to mean "on a small scale." "Synthesize" comes from "synthesis", Greek for "putting together", built from "syn-", meaning together, and "tithenai", meaning to place. Put side by side, the parts describe building something up from components, but on a tiny scale. This is a technical coinage rather than an old word. It belongs to the vocabulary of laboratory chemistry and biology, where researchers make compounds in very small quantities or at a miniature scale. Its meaning is therefore literal and transparent: to synthesize something in microscopic or minute amounts.