Nylon

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈnaɪlɒn/

Definitions

1. A strong and elastic synthetic fiber used extensively in clothing and various industrial products can also be found in items like carpets and gear components
2. This versatile material, known for its durability and resistance to wear, is widely used in the creation of textiles, ropes, and components for machinery
3. A synthetic polyamide widely recognized for its strength and elasticity, commonly utilized in fabrics, ropes, and various industrial applications

Etymology: Before it had its name, the most famous synthetic fiber of the century was nearly called "Nuron," a coinage meant to sound new and, read backward, to spell "no run." For a material whose great commercial hope was women's stockings, it was a tempting boast, but not one any stocking could honestly make. The fiber came out of DuPont's laboratory in Wilmington, Delaware, where the chemist Wallace H. Carothers led research into long-chain molecules in the early 1930s. His team learned to build polyamides, chains formed by linking acids and amines, and one of them could be drawn into filaments that were strong, elastic and silky. Inside the company it went by working labels such as Rayon 66, Fiber 66 and "Duparon," the numbers referring to its chemical recipe. Carothers did not live to see it named; he died in 1937. When DuPont turned to the public name, "Nuron" gave way to "Nilon," which was then respelled with a "y" so that nobody would wonder how to say it. The company explained the result as deliberately meaningless: "nyl-" was an arbitrary syllable, and "-on" was the ending already common to fiber names like rayon and Dacron, itself said to echo cotton. Apart from that borrowed ending, the word was invented outright, with no traditional root behind it, and it was announced in 1938. That emptiness gave rise to a myth. A persistent story holds that the name stands for New York and London, the two cities supposedly involved in the fiber's development. No evidence supports this. Like many acronym explanations, it was invented after the fact to supply a meaning that was never there. DuPont made a second unusual choice. Instead of guarding the name as a trademark, it let the word go free, hoping people would treat it as the name of a material, like silk or wool, rather than a brand. They did. Stockings reached American stores in 1940 and caused a sensation, and the word quickly became shorthand for the stockings themselves. Then war took the fiber away from hosiery for parachutes and tire cord. Before long "nylon" had become the ordinary English name for a whole family of synthetic polyamides, whoever made them, which is exactly what the company had intended.

Synonyms: polyamide, synthetic fiber