Trioses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Simple sugar molecules that each contain three carbon atoms, such as glyceraldehyde and dihydroxyacetone, occurring as intermediates in metabolism
2. Monosaccharides built from three carbon atoms, produced during glycolysis and photosynthesis as key intermediates in cellular chemistry
3. Three-carbon sugars that serve as building blocks and metabolic intermediates in living cells, forming a basic class of carbohydrates

Etymology: Trioses are simple sugars with three carbon atoms, and the name is built almost mechanically from two pieces. The prefix "tri-" means three, and the suffix "-ose" is the chemists' marker for a sugar, borrowed from the word "glucose" and applied to sugars generally. Put together, the name tells you the molecule's size before you know anything about its structure. The plural form simply reflects that "triose" is a count noun, so each individual molecule of this kind is a triose and a group of them is trioses. The word belongs to a family of similar coinages in which the number prefix stands for the number of carbon atoms, so a sugar with five carbons is a pentose and one with six is a hexose.