Rennin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An enzyme extracted from the stomach lining of young mammals used to coagulate milk during cheese production ; a digestive catalyst that curdles dairy by breaking down its proteins for easier digestion ; a biological protease aiding in the formation of curds by transforming liquid milk into a solid form in cheesemaking processes
2. A natural stomach enzyme that causes milk to thicken by cleaving milk proteins, primarily used in making cheese ; a substance that triggers milk coagulation to separate curds and whey in dairy processing ; a protein-splitting enzyme from ruminant stomachs applied to create firm curd mass during cheese manufacture
3. A recombinant or animal-derived enzyme responsible for milk coagulation in the dairy industry ; an enzymatic agent from ruminant gastric tissue catalyzing casein clotting to produce cheese curds ; a biological catalyst used to transform fluid milk into solid curds essential for cheese preparation

Etymology: Rennin is a chemist's coinage built from an older word, and its name points back to the Old French and Latin suffix that gave English "-ine," as in "gelatine" or "quinine." The base word, rennet, is the older English term for the curdling substance taken from the stomach lining of young calves, and rennin is that substance's active enzyme, isolated and named once scientists could separate it from the rest of the stomach extract. The suffix has a long ancestry. It descends from a Proto-Italic ending, "-īnus," which Latin used to form adjectives meaning "of or belonging to" something, and it passed into English through Old French "-in" and Middle English "-in." Over centuries English speakers attached it to substances, so that a word like "rennet" could gain a chemical sibling simply by adding "-in." Rennin follows that pattern directly: rennet plus "-in," with no older history of its own.

Synonyms: chymosin, rennet