Minoxidil

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medication that widens blood vessels and is applied to the scalp or taken orally to treat hereditary hair loss and hypertension
2. A pharmaceutical compound originally developed for high blood pressure and later used topically to encourage hair regrowth
3. A drug that relaxes and expands blood vessels, commonly applied to the scalp to slow baldness or taken to lower blood pressure

Etymology: Minoxidil was not named for hair at all. It was developed as a treatment for high blood pressure, and its name is a deliberate blend of its chemistry: "amino" for the amine groups in its structure, "oxid(e)" for the oxygen, and "-dil" for "vasodilator," a drug that widens blood vessels. The name was built by stitching together chemical fragments rather than by any traditional word-formation pattern, so its parts are easier to trace than its meaning. Each piece has its own ancestry. "Amine" goes back to "ammonia," which takes its name from the Egyptian god Amun, whose temple sat near salt deposits where ammonium chloride was collected; Greek "Ammōn" and Latin "Ammōnia" carried the name into modern chemistry. "Oxide" comes through French "oxyde," built from Greek "oxús" meaning "sharp" or "acid," with the suffix "-ide" added in the 19th century to name chemical compounds. The "-il" in "-dil" is a chemical suffix, not a historical word, so the blend is largely a 20th-century coinage.