Polysaccharides

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Biological macromolecules made up of numerous sugar units that are crucial for energy storage and structural integrity in organisms
2. Large molecules formed by repeated monosaccharide units that are important for energy provision and cellular architecture
3. Chains of sugar molecules linked to form large carbohydrate compounds found in living things

Etymology: Sugar's name in India and Greece has traveled a long way to reach this chemistry term. The Sanskrit "śarkarā" (gravel, grit, sugar) passed into Greek as "sákkhar," and from there into Latin as "saccharum," which gave English the combining form "saccharo-." Sugar was once thought of as something like sand or grit, and the same root shows up in the family of words that describe sugar's chemistry today. The "-ide" ending is a chemical marker, borrowed from the Latin "-idus" (via French-style chemical naming), and "saccharide" was formed in English to name a sugar compound. Adding "poly-," from Greek "polús" meaning "many," produced "polysaccharide," a compound made of many sugar units joined together. The plural simply applies to the class of such compounds, such as starch, cellulose and glycogen.

Synonyms: carbohydrates, complex sugars