Polycondensation

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The chemical process entails the merger of smaller molecules to create a larger polymer while simultaneously producing byproducts like water
2. It defines a type of reaction that leads to the formation of polymers by linking monomers in a stepwise manner, often with the release of small molecules
3. A chemical reaction where monomers connect step-by-step to form a large polymer chain while releasing small molecules as byproducts

Etymology: Polycondensation is a compound built from two parts that each carry a long history. The first part, "poly-", comes from the Ancient Greek "polús", meaning "much" or "many", and it reached English as a combining form used to build words about multiplicity, such as "polygon" and "polymer". The second part, "condensation", is the older of the two in English, borrowed from Latin "condensatio", a noun from "condensare", "to make dense", which describes a substance being packed into a smaller, thicker form. Put together, the word describes a chemical process in which many small molecules are condensed into one large chain. Each joining step tends to release a small byproduct, such as water, which is why the "condensation" half of the word is so apt: the reaction packs units together and sheds a little material along the way. The "poly-" prefix then signals that the result is a polymer built from many repeating units.