Toluide

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A chemical compound in which a metal is bonded to the toluidine group, often used as a strong base in organic synthesis
2. A salt formed when the toluidine radical combines with a metal atom, used in certain chemical reactions
3. An organometallic compound derived from toluidine in which a metal replaces a hydrogen atom on the amine nitrogen

Etymology: Toluide belongs to chemistry, and its history is that of a naming pattern rather than a single coinage. The word is built from "toluene", the hydrocarbon once distilled from Tolu balsam, a resin named after the Colombian town of Santiago de Tolú, with the suffix "-ide", which chemists attached to compounds formed by combining an element or group with another. A toluide is therefore a compound in which the toluene group is bound to another element or group, in the same way that the word "anilide" is built from "aniline". The spelling "toluid" is the other form of the same word, and the two are used interchangeably in chemical writing. Chemists have long preferred naming compounds by systematic, transparent parts, so a term like this lets a reader see the parent hydrocarbon directly in the name.