Organoboranes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Chemical compounds in which carbon atoms are directly bonded to boron atoms, widely used as reagents in organic synthesis
2. A class of organic molecules featuring boron linked to carbon, valued by chemists for building complex structures in the laboratory
3. Substances made of carbon-boron bonds that serve as versatile intermediates when chemists construct new carbon frameworks

Etymology: "Organoboranes" is the plural of "organoborane," a compound built from "organo-" and "borane." The second part, "borane," is itself a compound of "boron" and "-ane," the suffix chemists use for saturated hydrogen compounds such as methane and ethane. "Boron" traces back through Anglo-Norman and Medieval Latin to Arabic "bawraq" and ultimately to Middle Persian "bōrag," the name of the mineral borax, which is where boron was first known from. Chemists added the "-on" ending when they named the element in the early nineteenth century, so the word's oldest layer is a Persian word for a salt, not a scientific coinage. The "organo-" element comes from "organic," which in chemistry means compounds containing carbon bonded to hydrogen. Put together, "organoborane" describes a molecule in which boron is bonded directly to carbon, the sort of compound that became central to synthetic chemistry in the twentieth century. The word is therefore a modern technical formation, assembled from parts that each carry a much older history.